ORK AND PLAT 



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OUTDOOR WORK 

4tvMARV ROCERS MILLER 



THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY 
OF WORK AND PLAY 

Cabpentry and Woodwork. 
By Edwin W. Foster 

Electricity and Its Everyday Uses 
By John F. Woodhull, Ph.D. 

Gardening and Farming 

By Ellen Eddy Shaw 

Home Decoration * 

By Charles Franklin Warner, Sc.D. 

Housekeeping 

By Elizabeth Hale Gilman. 

Mechanics, Indoors and Out ^ 
By Fred T. Hodgson. 

Needlecraft 

By Effie Archer Archer 

Outdoor Sports, and Games 

By Claude H. MiUer, Ph.B. 

Outdoor Work 

By Mary Rogers Miller 

Working in Metals 

By Charles Conrad Sleffel. 




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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLTTOING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVXAN 



COPYRIGHT, igil, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 



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^ THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO 

EIGHT BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO SENT 
ONE ANOTHER TO COLLEGE 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Acknowledgment is due to the expert writers of 
United States government and state experiment 
station bulletins from which much practical infor- 
mation has been gained by the author; to the boys 
and girls who wrote for this book the stories of 
their success in several kinds of outdoor industry; 
to Dr. Burton N. Gates, State Inspector of 
Apiaries in Massachusetts, and Prof. James E. 
Rice of the Department of Poultry Husbandry at 
Cornell University for reading the chapters on their 
specialties and for numerous suggestions which make 
those chapters valuable; and to many others from 
whom helpful ideas have come in letters. 



A WORD TO PARENTS 

There are two sovereign cures for the ills of modern 
life: Work and outdoors. It is the purpose of 
this book on ** Outdoor Work for Young People " 
to teach the gospel of these two remedies, not in 
lessons nor sermons, but in the form of confidential 
talks, which are intended to be both practical and 
inspiring. 

The guiding principles in the preparation of this 
book are three: 1, to help young people to earn 
money; 2, to help them build character; 3, to help 
them make better citizens. 

1. The most obvious reason why children wish 
to work is that they "want to earn money,'* to 
spend as they like. Here is a great opportunity 
and a considerable danger. The opportunities are 
to help support the family, to learn self-reliance, 
to gain in efficiency, to appreciate the sacrifices 
made by parents, to purchase innocent pleasures, 
and to save toward a college education. The dangers 
are that children may become too commercially 
minded, grasping, even dishonest, make dull play- 



X A WORD TO PARENTS 

mates, and become stunted in character for lack 
of play and wholesome stimulus to the imagination. 
If you will analyze these dangers you will find that 
they are all the results of overdoing good things. 
The old rule of the Greeks, "Nothing too much" is 
the golden rule to measure perfect commercial 
relations between parents and children. 

2. But far more important than money making 
is character making. And therefore one of the 
principles of this book is to suggest in a thousand 
ways that money making may go too far. For 
example, I would encourage boys to gather and sell 
nuts, but not to take nuts from a neighbour's trees 
without permission nor destroy young trees whose 
future crops belong to a future generation of boys. 
I encourage trapping but urge the use of humane 
traps to avoid cruelty. I encourage the gathering 
and selling certain wild flowers, if abundant, but 
warn against the danger of exterminating species, 
or of robbing the public of pleasure. I have gone 
over all of the things that children do out of doors 
and have tried to select the best occupations. I have 
studied the worst things they do and have sug- 
gested their opposites — constructive work that earns 
money, develops character, or preserves public 
property. For example, instead of collecting birds' 



A WORD TO PARENTS xi 

eggs I suggest methods of attracting birds, building 
houses for them, and providing food and protection 
from enemies. 

3. The book is addressed to the citizens of 
nineteen hundred and twenty. Will not busy boys 
and girls make better citizens than idle ones? Prac- 
tical patriotism becomes second nature to children 
who learn early to regard the rights of others, 
to respect the laws, and to protect public property. 
The boy who raises wild fowl and liberates them or 
refrains from mutilating for purely selfish ends a 
fine tree is doing his share in the great work of 
conservation. 

But the young workers cannot do it all. You 
will be disappointed if you give this book to a child 
for a birthday or Christmas present and expect 
him to "do the rest," without further help. There 
is no substitute for affectionate parental interest. 
This book will surely fail you if you do not thor- 
oughly believe in the dignity of manual labour and 
experience the uplift that rewards work with your 
own hands. Although in theory we may all believe 
in the dignity of labour (for other people), 
many of us make mental reservations to suit our 
own cases and persist in regarding certain forms of 
labour as distinctly beneath our dignity. Children 



xii A WORD TO PARENTS 

see through that attitude every time. When I 
used to be acquainted with the citizens of the 
George Junior Republic, they had a saying that 
even the President and the Judge could not main- 
tain standing with the others unless they took their 
turn now and then working in the ditch. And so I 
say, work with your children, with common tools, 
out in the dirt. The scratches will heal and the dirt 
will wash off, but the sense of kinship with workers 
will stay. 

Have a "You and I" club, with you and the 
children for members. Meet once a week to dis- 
cuss schemes for earning money to buy what the 
children want. It is easier to go out and earn the 
money and give it to them to spend, but where do 
they come in? Read parts of this book aloud 
when outside information or suggestion is needed. 
Make a list of your children's occupations; consider 
whether they are the best ones. If you know any 
better ones than I have put into this book please 
tell me, for I, too, have children and I wish them to 
have the very best works and plays that children 
in this world can have. 



CONTENTS 

CHAFTES PAGE 

I. The Best Ways of Earning Money . » . 3 
II. Harvesting Nature's Crops 9 

Wild berries — Wild fruits — Nuts — Tree seeds — 
Christmas greens — Medicinal plants — Walking sticks 
— Wild flowers for city children — Corn husks — 
Fragrant herbs and grasses — Balsam leaves — Birch 
bark — Porcupine quills — Maple sugar — Wild rice — 
Spruce gum — Mushrooms. 

III. Raising Domestic Animals 101 

Colts — Sheep — Goats — Calves — Pigs — Chickens — 
Guinea fowls — Turkeys — Peacocks — Ducks — Squabs 
for market — Pheasants. 

IV. Raising Animals for Pets 203 

Shetland ponies — Rabbits, guinea pigs, and cavies — 
Fancy pigeons — Bantams — Fancy fowls — Dogs — Gold- 
fish. 

V. Work and Play with Trained Animals . . 241 

Dairy cows — Training pet animals — Training young 
horses — Treadmills and cranks — Making animals 
happy — Taming wild animals. 

VI. Making Brooks and Springs Useful . . . 271 
Reclaiming a trout stream — Reclaiming a Spring — 
Making a swimming pool. 

Vn. Keeping Bees 287 

Vin. Raising Silkworms 338 

IX. Making Collections 350 

Plants — Shells — insects. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PACK 

X. Odd Jobs 405 

Kindling-wood — Cleaning a carriage — Work in the 
orchard — Making rustic furniture — Selecting seed corn 

— Making cider vinegar — Making grape juice — Mak- 
ing leaf mould — Making lavender sticks — Drying com 

— Making a tennis court — Shovelling snow — Mowing 
lawns — Utilizing wood ashes — Planting crocuses in the 
lawn — Making ice — Cutting seed potatoes — Pruning — 
Cleaning rugs. 

XI. Making the Country a Better Place to Live In 450 

Improving home grounds — Outdoor clubs — Attracting 
birds — Domesticating wild game — Protecting wild 
flowers — Preventing forest fires — Killing weeds — 
Getting rid of poison ivy — Lessening the plague of mos- 
quitoes — Fighting flies — Trapping — Curing and tan- 
ning skins. 

Appendix 

Free Printed Matter: How to Get It . . .514 

List of Books and Bulletins by Experts on Out- 
door Work 518 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Harvesting Nature's Crops 



Frontispiece 



FACING PAGE 



Gathering Wild Flowers for City Children 

"Big Boy Blue" Looks After the Sheep 

Feeding the Goats 

The Shetland Pony is the Ideal Pet 

Holding a Conversation 

Gyp Has an Ax to Grind 

A Group of Happy Farm Animals 

The Skunk is an Amiable and Well-mannered Pet 

The Crow May be Tamed when Young 

A "Bottle Baby" .... 

Plenty of Trout in This Stream When Grandfather 

was a Boy .... 

An Odd Job that is Never Out of Date 
Is this Work or Play? 



62 ^- 

106^ 

114 : 

204 

242- 

250 

256 

266 

266 

268 

272 '-• 

404 

452 



OUTDOOR WORK 



THE BEST WAYS OF EARNING MONEY 

COULDN'T you use more money if you had 
it? There are several million American 
boys and girls just like you. They want 
a lot of things, a lot of good things. Wouldn't 
you like a half dollar once a year for a circus ticket, 
a quarter now and then for a box of candy, or ten 
dollars for a new dress or some music lessons? You'd 
be glad to buy your own clothes, and select them 
too, if you had the cash. That would be a big help 
in thousands of families. Parents sometimes wish 
that their children could "leave out" in new clothes 
in spring, like the trees. 

If you could begin to earn money at twelve you 
could save toward a college education, too. Lots 
of boys and girls are earning their way. You 
can. You can earn money between twelve and 
twenty years of age without interfering with your 
schooling. 

What kind of stories do you like best? Isn't it 
inspiring to read about the boyhood of our great men. 

3 



4 OUTDOOR WORK 

Do you remember young Abe Lincoln splitting rails? 
Garfield drove mules on a tow path. The men and 
women who are doing great things now started 
as boys and girls with work to do. They washed 
dishes and split kindlings and fed chickens and 
milked cows and dug potatoes. Now they are 
tunnelling mountains, building bridges, helping make 
the world better in all sorts of courageous ways. 

Don't you like to hear engineers, miners, sailors, 
inventors, animal trainers, cowboys, foresters, and 
other workers talk about their work.^ The only 
really happy people are the ones who have found 
the work they love best. I have put some 
stories in this book. These are told by real 
boys and girls who were successful in earning 
money. Can you beat them at their own 
game? Will you try? 

There are thousands of ways for young people 
in their teens to earn money. I believe the best 
are the outdoor ways. I have suggested a list 
of occupations, the best I can think of. Of course, 
no one person could try them all. Circumstances 
must decide. You will succeed best with the work 
which you like best. You must not let outside 
work interfere with your studies. You must not 
undertake work that is too hard for your strength 



THE BEST WAYS OF EARNING MONEY 5 

or unsuited to your disposition. Maybe this list 
will help you choose. 

OCCUPATIONS SUITED TO THE FOUR SEASONS AND 
SOME THAT GO THROUGH THE YEAR 

Summer.— Gaiihermg berries, tree seeds, bulbs 
and roots, wild flowers and ferns, balsam leaves, 
medicinal plants, pine cones, making collections, 
mowing lawns, marking tennis courts, sawing wood, 
cleaning rugs, drying herbs, corn and fruits, raising 
queen bees, collecting bait, rearing butterflies for 
museum specimens, gathering clam shells for 
button factories, shocking grain, "toting" water. 

Fall. — Gathering fruit, nuts, making corn husk 
mats and baskets, shelling corn, making leaf mould, 
clearing a field of stones, making stone fence, making 
grape juice and cider vinegar, collecting bayberries, 
painting barns and outbuildings, packing fruit, 
cleaning farm implements, gathering faggots, col- 
lecting cocoons, collecting insect homes for nature 
study. 

Winter. — Gathering spruce gum, collecting Christ- 
mas greens, shovelling snow, pruning shrubs, vines 
and trees, trapping, tanning skins, making candles, 
selecting seed corn, pruning and tying grapevines, 
transplanting trees and shrubs, feeding birds. 



6 OUTDOOR WORK 

Spring. — Cutting seed potatoes, budding, graft- 
ing, cutting dandelions from lawns, killing weeds, 
oiling ponds and ditches to kill mosquitoes, shelling 
corn, starting silkworms, trout, frog and toad cul- 
ture, attracting birds, fighting flies. 

Year-Round Occupations. — Keeping bees, raising 
goldfish, training animals, raising colts, sheep, pigs, 
goats, dogs, chickens and other poultry, rabbits 
and other pets, collecting wood for kindling, turning 
grindstone, milking, taming wild creatures, raising 
prize corn, potatoes, or cotton. 

THINGS WORTH THINKING ABOUT 

Don't think only of the money you can earn. 
There's no use talking, the work you do and the 
way you do it is going to have an influence on your 
character. Do a good job ! If you slight your work 
you cheat your employer. You know it, if he 
doesn't. You cheat yourself, too. And when you 
are working for yourself, you are the one who is 
doubly cheated by slack methods. That's plain. 

Don't choose an occupation you are doubtful 
about. Most occupations are perfectly honourable. 
Dishonesty comes in methods. The grown-up 
grafters, ten to one, were cheaters at games, and 
sneaks about work. 



THE BEST WAYS OF EARNING MONEY 7 

When in doubt, ask advice. Don't you like to 
be asked for your opinion? Everybody does. Ask 
your parents' advice about the work you think of 
undertaking, and the methods of carrying on the 
business side. What will please them more than 
to know that you have a keen sense of honour.'* 

This is my word of encouragement and inspira- 
tion to the boys and girls who read this book. 
There are a hundred perfectly good reasons why you 
should have more money of your own. And there 
are a thousand ways to earn it. Every one of you 
can earn a college education. Choose the best 
work for you, and do it with enthusiasm. If you 
want my advice about your work or any informa- 
tion I can get for you, nothing would please me 
more than to hear from you. 



II 

HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 
PICKING BERRIES 

THE berry picking season begins " 'long about 
knee-deep in June" with the first wild straw- 
berries. It does not end till the last cran- 
berry is harvested on the eve of Thanksgiving Day 
at the end of the drowsy Indian summer. There is 
money to be earned at this occupation wherever 
there is ambition to overcome diflSculties and force 
of character enough to step aside from the beaten 
paths. Fortunately berries are ripe in vacation 
time. For some people berry picking has almost 
if not quite the fascination of fishing. It lacks the 
objectionable features of hunting, fishing and trap- 
ping. Guns, tackle, and traps are unnecessary in 
this gentler sport. No costly tools are required. 
A light pail, flaring somewhat at the top, is a good 
receptacle. A wire bent into an S-shaped hook is 
handy to swing the pail over the forearm while 
the ambidextrous picker almost doubles the day's 
harvest if the fruit is extra plentiful. 

8 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 9 

There is hardly a state in the Union which has 
not plenty of wild fruits. The young citizens of 
each state should know these fruits and make the 
most of them. Some states or regions have fruits 
peculiar to themselves. Wouldn't it be worth 
while for the domestic science or cookery teacher 
in a country school to show her pupils how to 
utilize these home products? We hear talk about 
the cost of materials for use in classes in cookery. 
To let our wild fruits go to waste is poor economy 
whichever way we look at it. Wouldn't you, if 
you live in northern Michigan, like to exchange 
a pot of thimbleberry jam for one made in North 
Carolina from persimmons.'^ Or if you live in Mon- 
tana would you exchange buffalo berry marmalade 
with a Florida friend for guava jelly or preserved 
cumquats? 

WILD RASPBERRIES 

Just the other day a girl from the shore of Lake 
Superior told me of a camping trip on a part of the 
lake shore inaccessible except by water. A storm on 
the lake kept them from going home when they had 
expected so they gathered raspberries and canned 
and jammed them till their sugar gave out, then 
until every available cooking utensil, even the coffee 
pot, was full and the supply of berries was as 



10 OUTDOOR WORK 

unlimited as ever. These great, luscious fruits, she 
said, were as big as the end of her thumb, and fairly 
falling off the bushes with the weight of juice. 

Doesn't it make your mouth water.'* The pickers 
who live near the woods up there bring berries to 
town in milk pails. The fruit box may be more 
elegant, but there is a bountiful sound about the 
milk pail that takes my fancy. Of course, one gets 
scratched while berry -picking; but in what a good 
cause. Is there something wrong about boys and 
girls who prefer boxed berries and smooth hands 
to wild fruits and scratches? There are thousands 
of dollars wasted every year that might be working 
on some boy's or girl's schooling, just because 
nature's crop of raspberries isn't half harvested. 

Wild raspberries should be canned, jellied, or 
jammed by the regulation methods. With a good 
oil stove all the work can be done in the open air. 

THIMBLEBERRY 

Do you know the thimbleberry? Some call it 
the flowering raspberry. You will know by its 
shape and general look that it is a cousin to the black 
raspberry although it is flatter, seedier, and more 
sharply acid. It grows on a bush or shrub some- 
what like a raspberry, but its leaves are broad, like 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 11 

grape leaves. Instead of thorns its twigs are 
clothed with sticky hairs. The colour of the fruit 
is pinkish purple. 

Thimbleberries grow often along woods margins, 
just back of the fringe of wild red raspberries. 
You are lucky if you get two cupf uls of the thimble- 
berries while your companion is picking two quarts 
of the raspberries. Yours pack more closely and 
the fruit is not so abundant. 

The number of people who have tasted thimble- 
berry jam is small. I am told by one who has made 
it that you can get any price you ask for tiny glasses 
of it, even a dollar a glass, from people who "must 
have it." Made just as one does other jams, equal 
parts of fruit and sugar, there is nothing tastes 
quite like it. 

BLUEBERRIES 

Blueberry pie was a staple and justly popular 
dessert in a certain college dining-room, where I 
first made its acquaintance. It was, of course, made 
of canned blueberries, and we used to wonder where 
they all came from. We certainly never saw them 
growing in the Mississippi Valley. The blueberry 
belt is a wide one and includes all the eastern and 
central states. I first saw them growing on Cape 



12 OUTDOOR WORK 

Ann, and later on the New Hampshire hills. The 
women and children used to bring them in small 
pails to sell at the doors of their less enterprising 
neighbours. But the price was always high and the 
berries not first class, unless we gathered them our- 
selves. It takes a lot of picking to get two quarts. 
One gets an entirely wrong impression of the blue- 
berry business from these experiences. 

The great canning factories do not depend on a 
haphazard crop. In New England and the eastern 
states there are thousands of acres of waste land, 
shorn of its forest, where blueberries grow in greatest 
abundance. It is not possible to estimate with 
any accuracy the value of this wild crop. Pickers 
get from one and one-half to three cents a quart, and 
the boxes sell in retail market at from twelve and 
one-half cents to eighteen cents a box. Northern 
Michigan shipped five thousand bushels one year. 
They ship better than softer fruits, but the price 
is always high and the supply small because the 
canning factories are near the fields, and shipping 
is expensive. One large factory uses seven hundred 
bushels a day. The total product of the Maine 
canneries ten years ago was worth over one hundred 
thousand dollars. That must be where our college 
cook got her supply. 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 13 

Huckleberry and blueberry are the names used 
most commonly and you will meet people who know 
one from the other. But as both are blue and there 
are high bush and low bush huckleberries, as well 
as high and low bush blueberries, it is useless to 
discuss the names. Both are right and a huckle- 
berry in Ohio may be a blueberry in Maine. 

A sort of rake to gather blueberries is used for 
the low bushes. But hand picking is best. The 
rake tears the bushes so, and the berries have to 
be put through a fanning mill twice to free them 
from leaves and rubbish. This process fits them 
for the canners who are not as particular as we wish 
they were. 

The blueberry bush is a kind of Indian. It does 
not take kindly to gardens and other civilized places. 
It thrives and yields abundantly if given a chance 
on its native hillsides, and comes up by the million 
wherever the cutting of the timber lets in the light. 
By burning over the blueberry land in very early 
spring while the ground is wet, those in charge can 
keep down the alder, poplars, birches, and other 
non-money-making growths, and this is taken by 
the blueberries as their chance. They come right 
up, and deliver a tremendous crop the first year 
after the burning. 



14 OUTDOOR WORK 

WILD GRAPES 

We used to gather wild grapes along the river 
bottoms in the middle West when we went nutting. 
Sometimes our nutting excursion turned out to 
be a grape harvest. These grapes were small, 
almost black under their thin coat of bloom, in 
clusters like miniature garden grapes. Oh, but they 
were puckery when green, but the frost sweetened 
them. The vines grew tremendously, way to 
the tops of the trees, their stems like great ropes, 
which we used for swings. The grapes were really 
mostly seed and skin, but there was juice enough 
to stain our aprons, and give the teeth and tongue 
an unmistakable telltale hue. There was juice 
enough for a kind of jelly which I believe had 
the peculiarity of never "jelling" properly. It is 
good, though, and they were well worth the sugar 
to make them edible. 

I was surprised at their size when I first saw the 
big summer grapes of the eastern hedge-rows and 
banks. But their flavour is no great improvement 
over that of the frost grape. There is more pulp, 
though. My barberry gathering friend, who admits 
that she is "fond of all sorts of woodland flavours," 
gathers these grapes in August before they begin 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 15 

to change colour. She makes the only really green 
grape jelly I have seen. This is her receipt: 

Wash the stemmed grapes very carefully to rid 
them of dust and possible taint from poison ivy, 
with which they often associate. Put them into 
a preserving kettle with a very little boiling water, 
cover and let them steam till tender. (No boiling 
here.) Strain to get rid of seeds and skins. (Work 
fast at this point, because delay may cause the change 
of colour we wish to avoid.) Weigh the juice and an 
equal amount of white sugar. Heat sugar and juice 
separately, without scorching. Stir the hot sugar 
into the boiling juice, let boil up, skim, and put into 
dry, hot glasses. If it boils a long time it loses the 
green colour, and its flavour of the wild out-of-doors. 

Green grape jelly that is really green is a triumph. 
It would bring a price. 

ELDERBERRIES 

Elderberries have almost gone out of fashion in 
these days of refrigerator cars and cold storage, 
when fruits from all parts of the world are brought 
to our doors. But I am antiquated enough to like 
the rather flat, seedy things, and the "runny" jelly 
is of a wonderful colour and flavour. Best of all 
is the fun of gathering the broad, flat clusters, al- 



16 OUTDOOR WORK 

ways seeing a finer one just a few steps farther on 
or just over the fence. The golden-rod is brilliant 
in the September sunshine, the asters like star 
stuff sifted in every fence corner, while the fox grapes 
clambering over stray trees along the line fence 
fill the air with fragrance. Perhaps I could get 
on without the elderberries, but the New England 
conscience requires some practical excuse for 
traipsing off over the fields when there is useful 
work tOibe done indoors. Elderberries canned in a 
thin syrup, one cup of water, two of sugar, and all 
the berries the jar will hold, are excellent for steamed 
pudding. Drain off the juice, and stir the berries 
into the batter just as you would blueberries, 
mulberries, or any other fruit. The colour of the 
pudding will be awe-inspiring but with the juice 
for sauce it is good, really. 

BARBERRIES 

Our Westchester County hostess always took a 
basket on her arm when she went for a walk. She 
had an unusual taste for wild flavours of all sorts 
and her guests were always sure of some delightful 
surprise at her table. In September there is a choice 
of wild fruits, and everybody recognized the neces- 
sity for a basket. I wondered, though, when we 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 17 

passed, unnoticed, bushels of elderberries, and 
rods of browning grapes, and headed for a group 
of dogwood trees. But although the berries were 
thicker than I ever saw on the dogwood, they were 
only admired and left for the sun to burnish. High 
on a bare hilltop we sat where the view was pano- 
ramic. The lady with the basket betook herself to 
a fringe of tall, ruddy bushes on the brow of the 
hill, and I found her busily filling her basket with 
barberries. She did not wait to pick them singly 
but snipped off the laden twigs with scissors, avoid- 
ing thus the angry thorns. 

*'What are they good for.^^" I asked, as I tasted 
again the sharp, astringent flavour and felt that 
indescribable pucker on tongue and lips that goes 
with it. The barberry had long been a favourite 
with me; the bush for its wayward grace and its 
cunning flowers, the berries for their exquisite 
bloom and for tasting so unlike any cultivated thing. 
But I had never dreamed of making jelly of them. 

"Jelly," said our hostess. "It's particularly good 
with game." 

Of course it would be good with game, but can 
you imagine eating barberry jelly with corn-fed 
pork or with fat mutton.? 

The berries should be gathered before they are 



18 OUTDOOR WORK 

fully ripe and treated like currants, although the 
yield of juice is meagre. Add a little water and heat 
slowly. Strain and add "pound for pound "of sugar. 
Put in tiny glasses. Any one in search for a unique 
Christmas gift for an epicurean uncle would find 
barberry jelly fills the bill. 

In Salem, Mass., I saw barberries for sale in the 
market. They looked mightily out of place along 
with pineapples, watermelons, grapes, peaches, 
Japanese plums, and other conventional market 
fruits. 

BAYBERRIES 

Two friends of mine, summering on Cape Ann, 
discovered there to their delight, a low shrub, 
growing in great profusion on the rocky hills. The 
foliage was of a rich green colour, of a leathery 
texture, and was possessed of an aromatic odour 
at once delightful and wholesome to their senses. 
They were seized with a great desire to take home 
with them a quantity of this plentiful foliage to 
make into pillows or to feed the fire on the hearth 
that they might inhale its fragrance, and be reminded 
of Cape Ann and the summer sea. 

So they procured huge gunny sacks which they 
were at some pains to stuff to their utmost capacity. 
They have a snapshot of themselves, bent double 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 19 

under the weight of the great sacks. With the help 
of a friendly native they succeeded in transporting 
the burdens to the express office, and addressed 
them home. We cheerfully paid the expressman's 
charges at the home end, having been advised that 
the bags were coming, and carried them to the attic 
floor where they were to be spread to cure. But 
when the contents came tumbling out, its pent-up 
fragrance was familiar. Then was it possible those 
blessed geese had been spending their precious va- 
cation days gathering bay berry leaves? It was 
even so, and we had paid nearly two dollars express 
on the bags — and our woods were full of it! 
What a laugh we had at their expense when they 
came to reimburse us. 

The bayberry shrub is also called wax myrtle 
and it is easy to see why, when you find the berries 
in October. They are gray, almost white, and you 
see that each one is covered with tiny drops of wax 
that has oozed out of the berry and dried on its 
surface. 

Bayberry is called candleberry, too, because of 
the use our great-grandmothers made of the wax. 
Bayberry dips have come into fashion again and 
people who make them skilfully find a ready sale 
for their product. 



20 OUTDOOR WORK 

MAKING BAYBERRY DIPS 

To make bayberry candles you must first gather 
the wax-covered berries. Get them early, for, as 
cold weather comes on, the pellets of wax drop off. 
Two quarts make only a little ball of wax, so you 
must gather an enormous quantity of the berries. 
Put them into water and bring it to a boil, stirring 
well to be sure that all the wax is melting. Being 
lighter than water the wax will rise to the surface. 
When you think all the berries are bare, take them 
from the fire. As the water cools, the wax hardens 
on top. If the berries do not all go to the bottom 
you will have to melt the wax again over a slow 
fire or in a double boiler until the wax rises clean at 
the top; all dirt and refuse on its lower surface can 
be scraped off. Do not let the wax burn. Smoke 
is a sure sign that it is too hot. In a double boiler 
there is no danger. 

To make the dips, take regular candle wicking, 
a soft, white, loosely twisted cord, cut it twice the 
desired length for the candle. Double it and twist 
enough to hold it together. The loop at one end 
is convenient to hold it by. Dip into the hot wax 
and then as it cools draw the wick down with finger 
and thumb so that it hangs straight and kinkless. A 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 21 

second dip adds a little to the diameter of the 
candle, the third another layer and so on till your 
first bayberry dip is finished. If the first effort 
is not a good shape and has to go back into the pot 
you needn't be discouraged. Didn't the first choco- 
late cream you ever made look like a chestnut gone 
wrong.? But with patience it is possible for even 
a beginner to produce very shapely candles. They 
do not need to be absolutely regular. Paraffin or 
tallow candles, moulded just alike by the hundred 
thousand dozen, may be as round and perfect as 
machinery can make them. Part of the charm of 
the bayberry dips is in these slight irregularities of 
shape and size. 

WILD CRAB APPLES 

Thickets of small trees, bearing little solid green 
apples are a feature of almost every farm in the 
prairie states. They are common also on the hilly 
pastures of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and New 
York. The South, too, has its native crab apple. 
School children the country over loved in my day to 
fill their pockets with the hard, sour, little fruits and 
nibble at them surreptitiously under cover of a 
broad geography. But perhaps children's tastes 
have changed since that far time. 



82 OUTDOOR WORK 

Modern geography must be different, anyhow. 
I saw one the other day shaped just like a fifth 
reader or history or any other. It just looked 
like any book, not one bit like a g'ography. 

The little crabs were made into sauce or "butter," 
by pioneers of the prairie states. We washed, quar- 
tered, and cut out the wormy places, stewed them 
till soft with a little water, then put them through 
a coarse sieve to take out seeds, cores, and skin. 
The pulp was then sweetened with sorghum molasses 
and boiled; stirring is necessary to prevent burning. 
The appetites of those days did not demand 
dainty fare. Well do I remember a small visitor 
to whom our cookery was new whose demand for 
crab-apple-sauce-if-you-please was hard to satisfy. 
I believe crab apple jelly would be regarded a great 
delicacy by people of good taste, if once they had 
a try at it. 

PERSIMMONS 

The children of the persimmon belt, which in- 
cludes a much larger part of the eastern half of the 
United States than many suppose, all know that 
the fruit of some trees is better than that of others. 
The 'possum knows, too, and lucky is he who finds 
both *' fruits" on the same tree. There is a market 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 23 

for persimmons if they are gathered after frost, and 
a greater demand may be created. Seeing an un- 
famihar fruit in the market is very hkely to awaken 
the interest. Whether the buyer will want a second 
basket or not depends entirely upon the cleverness 
of the person that supplies the demand. The 
thoroughly ripe fruit is, according to an experienced 
traveller, "entirely without bitterness or astrin- 
gency, sweet, rich, and juicy." What more can you 
say about watermelon or strawberries.^ But if 
you who gather the fruits persist in hurrying them 
green into market you may expect that the preju- 
dice against persimmons will grow stronger. 

HAWS 

Is there any good reason why some of the people 
who used to be boys should never have a chance 
to taste any thorn apples now that they are older.'' 
Perhaps these grown-up boys deserve to be pun- 
ished for deserting the old haunts, but give them a 
taste of what the open road has to offer and maybe 
they will be tempted back to a simpler life. 

The fruit of the May haw or apple haw of the 
far South is sold in the markets of some cities and is 
made into preserves and jelly. The Washington 
thorn which grows wild in Virginia and the other 



24 OUTDOOR WORK 

states not far from the capital city is also cultivated 
in many gardens farther north. It has run wild 
from these gardens and ranges over New York, 
Pennsylvania and neighbouring states. Though 
usually small, its berries are a beautifully shining 
scarlet and very numerous. It is worth risking a 
pound or so of sugar just to see what jelly they would 
make. The pear haw has a thick, juicy flesh, and 
some of the yellow ones are equally good. 

WILD PLUMS 

The wild plums of the East did not strike the 
early settlers as very much worth while. They 
were almost all seed and skin and the rest was 
"pucker." Quite naturally the plums of the mother 
country were preferred and sprouts were brought 
over and set in the gardens of our forefathers. 
These plum emigrants did so well in the new country 
that they escaped from the gardens into the pastures 
and roadsides, coming up wherever seeds were 
dropped. In such places they still flourish and are 
thought of as wild plums. They are gathered for 
market, but compare unfavourably, except with 
very old-fashioned people, with the garden-grown 
fruits of the same or similar varieties. 

The pioneers of the middle West, however, found 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 25 

very fine plums growing wild in plentiful thickets. 
We used to gather these native plums in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, in great tubfuls. We not only ap- 
preciated the crop nature provided for us every 
year, but were far-sighted enough to realize that 
the time would come when the march of civilization 
would tramp out the plum thickets. So we planted 
them in orchards and gardens, taking those trees 
that had given us the best crops of the biggest, 
finest fruit. In fact, the pioneers did just what 
we ought to be doing all over our country with other 
wild fruits and with nuts. The wild goose plum 
is a native which has founded a race of which there 
are many named varieties, much bigger and finer 
than the little, old, wild grandmother of the plum 
thicket, but they all have still that same tart tang, 
just under the skin, that gave to our wild plum 
*'jeir' its incomparable flavour. 
r Are the wild plums all forgotten? Must all fruit 
come out of boxes and have that stale taste of the 
town. Must it lose its characteristic aroma and 
give ofiF only that general "markety" smell? Is 
"goin' plummin'" entirely out of fashion, even in 
the prairie states? I don't believe it is as bad as 
that? Do you believe that moving pictures or shoot 
the shoots or merry-go-rounds can begin to compare 



26 OUTDOOR WORK 

with such simple pleasures as plumming, graping, 
berrying, and nutting? I have tried both, and give 
me the old, homely pleasures every time. 

The following extract from *'The Tree Book" 
so well describes an annual outing of pioneer children 
that it is quoted in full : 

*' 'Do you calculate to go a-plummin' this fall?' 
The question was quietly put in father's judicial 
tones, but it sent an electric thrill from head to toes 
of every youngster. Mother's reply sent an answer- 
ing current, and the enthusiasm of the moment 
burst all bounds. *Well, you better go this after- 
noon. I can spare the team and wagon, and I 
guess John is big enough to drive. There's no use 
goin' at all if you don't go right off.' 

*'So mother and the children rode out of the yard, 
she sitjting with her young driver on the spring seat, 
the rest on boards laid across the wagon box behind. 
What a jouncing they got when the wheels struck 
a stone in a rut! But who cared for a trifle like 
that? John's reckless driving but brought nearer 
the goal of their heart's desire. 

"A lurid colour lightened the plum thicket as it 
came in sight. The yellow leaves were falling and 
the fruit glowed on the bending twigs. Close up 
the wagon is drawn; then all hands pile out, and 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 27 

the fun really begins. How large and sweet they 
are this year! Mother knows how to avoid the 
puckery, thick skin in eating plums. The young- 
sters try to chew two or three at once and their 
faces are drawn into knots. But they soon get used 
to that. 

"Now the small folks with pails are sent to pick 
up ripe plums under the trees, and warned against 
eating too many. 'Remember last year,' says 
mother, and they do remember. The larger boys 
spread strips of burlap and rag carpet under the 
fullest trees, in turn, and give their branches a good 
beating that showers the plums down. With diffi- 
culty the boys and girls make their way into the 
thicket; but torn jackets and aprons and scratched 
hands can be mended — such accidents are over- 
looked in the excitement of filling the grain sacks 
with ripe fruit. How fine 'plum butter' will 
taste on the bread and butter of the noon lunch 
when winter comes and school begins. (The 
Pennsylvanian's love for 'spreads' on his bread 
leavened the West completely.) 

**Other neighbours have come, and started in with 
a vim. It seems unreasonable to take any more. 
The bags are full, and there are some poured loose 
into the wagon box. Besides, everybody is tired, 



28 OUTDOOR WORK 

and John shouts that the hazel-nuts are ripe on the 
other side of the log road. 

"A great grape vine, loaded with purple clusters, 
claims mother's attention. There will probably 
be no better chance for grapes this fall, and the sun 
is still an hour high. John chops down the little 
tree that supports it and the girls eagerly help to 
fill the pails with the fruit of the prostrate vine, 
while John goes back to command the hazel-nut brig- 
ade and sees that no eager youngster strays too far. 

"Mother's voice gives the final summons, and the 
children gather at the wagon, tired but regretful 
for the filled husks that they must leave behind on 
the hazel bushes. A loaded branch of the grape 
vine is cut off bodily, and lifted into the wagon. 
The team is hitched on, and the happy passengers 
in the wagon turn their faces homeward." 

Such was the poetry of pioneer life. Pleasures 
were simple, primitive, hearty — like the work — 
closely interlinked with the fight against starvation. 
There was nothing dull or uninteresting about either. 
The plums and grapes were sweetened with molasses 
made from sorghum cane. Each farmer grew a 
little strip, and one of them had a mill to which 
every one hauled his cane to be ground "on the 
shares." 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 29 

Who will say that this "long sweetenin'" was 
poor stuff, that the quality of the spiced grapes 
suffered for lack of sugar, or that any modern pre- 
serves have a more excellent flavour than those 
of the old days made out of the wild plums gathered 
in the woods? And this is also true: There is no 
more exhilarating holiday conceivable than those 
half days when mother took the children and "went 
a-plummin'." 

NUTS 

The wild nuts gathered in this country for sale 
or home use in the North are chestnuts, hickory 
nuts, black walnuts, butternut, hazel-nut, beechnut; 
in the South, the pecan and the chinquapin; in the 
far West, the pine nut. The least known of these 
in eastern markets are the pine nuts, which form 
a very staple article of food for many tribes of 
Indians in the Great Basin. John Muir says that 
there are tens of thousands of acres covered with 
nut pines. An industrious Indian family can gather 
fifty or sixty bushels in a month if the snow does 
not catch them. The little cones are beaten off with 
poles as the trees are not high, and are heated till 
they open and the nuts fall out from under the 
scales. I have eaten pine nuts in Turkish restau- 



30 OUTDOOR WORK 

rants. They came as a surprise in a dish of egg- 
plant stuffed with chopped meat, raisins, nuts, 
bread crumbs, and I know not what all else. 

The native chestnut, though smaller, is far sweeter 
than the popular Spanish one. But it looks as if 
some foreigner must take the place of our native 
chestnuts in the woods as well as in the market. 
The chestnut disease which has driven the trees out 
of the parks and wood lots near New York City 
is baffling the scientists. Every year the dead- 
line moves westward and southward and northward 
from its center. Perhaps a cure will be found 
before all the chestnuts are gone. If any region 
has a few trees which seem to withstand the disease 
while all the rest die, those trees should be preserved 
and used to propagate a race of chestnuts which 
would be immune. It may be that the Spanish 
and Japanese chestnuts will prove hardier than our 
own. These are being grown quite extensively 
in some Eastern states. They bear when remark- 
ably young. Japanese chestnuts begin to bear, 
according to the nurserymen, *'at three years of 
age, bear from three to seven nuts in a bur, each 
nut measuring from four to five inches in circum- 
ference." Trees five years old bear two or three 
quarts each and the yield increases rapidly from 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 31 

year to year. These bring fancy prices in city 
markets and are eaten either raw or cooked. 

In growing chestnuts it is the practice first to 
cut down the old native trees. As in all likelihood 
these would be dead in a few years anyhow, this is 
economical. Dead lumber is not as valuable as 
live lumber. The first year after a chestnut is cut, 
a crop of young suckers come up around the stump. 
These shoots are grafted with scions of a desired 
variety. There is a good story of a lad of twelve 
years of age who asked his father to graft a chestnut 
tree. Although the man was grafting apple trees 
at the time he laughed at the boy's idea. The 
lad did not forget and years after he put his idea 
into practice and now owns a chestnut grove which 
brings him an income of thousands of dollars. His 
chestnut groves are on waste land unfit for ordinary 
farm purposes. If one farm boy in every county 
would take an interest in growing the nuts that 
belong to his region, think how the value of the 
nut crop would increase. Every boy knows that 
the hickory nuts on one particular shell-bark are 
bigger and sweeter than on every other one he 
knows of. He and his friends try to get there 
first, before the "other gang" do, and make sure of 
their share. But does he ever plant any big sweet 



32 OUTDOOR WORK 

nuts along a fence row and take care of the young 
trees till they are big enough to take care of them- 
selves? In the seventeenth century there was a 
law in certain European countries that every young 
man should plant a certain number of walnut trees. 
Unless he could prove that he had complied with 
the law, he couldn't marry. What a good idea! 
With such a law we might have more fine trees and 
fewer hasty marriages. 

CHINQUAPINS 

A coloured girl brought me a pint of chinquapins 
from her home in Ca'line County, Virginia; I 
sampled them eagerly, taking great pleasure in 
their diminutive prettiness, tidy shape, and rich, 
dark colouring. I kept a handful securely tied in 
the little salt bag in which they had made the 
journey and took them to my native state to show 
to the children, who had never seen a chestnut tree 
of any kind. 

When I took the bag from the trunk, there was a 
dustiness about the feel of it that aroused my 
suspicions. I emptied the contents into a flat 
dish. There were my nuts, their glossy brown 
shells as smooth as ever, but empty. Rolling 
about amongst them were a lot of the plumpest 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 33 

little white grubs, fairly bent double with corpu- 
lency. There must have been one for each nut, 
for not a sound kernel was left. 

I learn from chestnut-wise people that these 
weevils are another great enemy of chestnut culture, 
no remedy having been found. 

The chinquapin is the Southern child's chestnut. 
It is sometimes a tree, but more often a low shrub. 
The bur is round and has only one nut in it. A 
good many are marketed, especially in Southern 
cities, and bring a good price when fresh. The 
weevils enter the nuts before they are mature and 
it is difficult to find the bad nuts till too late to pre- 
vent a disagreeable impression. This interferes with 
the popularity of the chinquapin as a dessert nut. 

HAZEL-NUTS 

The American hazel-nut flourishes over the 
eastern half of the United States. It is a sweet 
little nut, much more to my taste than the bigger 
filbert, which is so popular in our markets. We 
used to gather hazel-nuts in the edge of woods 
which fringe the little rivers of the Mississippi 
Valley. The bushes grew in thickets and while 
the big brothers and sisters gathered the nuts from 
among the closely interlaced branches that grew 



34 OUTDOOR WORK ! 

scarcely higher than their heads, the smaller fry 
crept in underneath and getting about on the floor 
of the woods searched for nuts that had ripened 
early and dropped from the browning husk. 

There is no progress in simply going out in the 
fall and taking what nature furnishes. Unaided, 
the good mother goes on producing the same small 
nuts, caring just as patiently for the inferior ones 
and even encouraging the nut weevils to prey upon 
them. But I wonder if some boy or girl who thinks 
there isn't any interesting work to be done on the 
farm, could not make some experiments in hazel-nut 
culture. 

The bushes grow readily from seed, but seedlings 
do not always produce as fine nuts as those that 
were planted. For this reason one can save time 
by selecting the bushes that bear the largest crop 
of fine nuts and propagating those. They grow 
in any well drained, fairly rich soil and I know of 
hundreds of miles of fence rows answering these 
requirements, which now produce poison ivy, 
cat brier and other harmful crops. Hazel bushes 
make a beautiful fence row, and yield a salable 
crop. Hazel bushes propagate naturally by suckers 
and layers. By manuring well in summer long 
shoots for layering will be forced. "These should 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 35 

be staked down in winter or spring and covered with 
earth. They may be removed to nursery rows 
or orchard at the end of the first season." So 
says W. A. Taylor in the "Cyclopaedia of American 
Horticulture." The same writer gives directions for 
pruning as follows: Strong shoots should be headed 
back to promote spur formation (the • nuts are 
borne on short side shoots) and old wood that 
has borne fruit should be removed annually. Suck- 
ers should be kept down unless wanted for propaga- 
tion. March or April is the best time to prune 
as they blossom very early and one must avoid 
cutting off either the young nuts or the pollen- 
bearing flowers. The nuts should be gathered 
when the husk begins to brown at the edges. If 
left longer, as is most often done, in the case of 
wild nuts, a large proportion of the crop falls to the 
ground and is lost. Beside, the dried hulled nuts 
do not bring as high a price as the fresh unhusked 
ones. If kept long in the husk they will mould, 
unless dried thoroughly. The nuts, however, will 
keep through the season in a cool place. 

WALNUTS 

The fruit of the black walnut is enclosed in a 
globe-shaped husk. All country boys and girls 



36 OUTDOOR WORK 

know how that husk smells and how it stains the 
fingers. The nuts are very oily and must be treated 
carefully. They should be dried, preferably on 
the garret floor, hulled and stored in a cool, dry 
place. If for market, they should be sold imme- 
diately. They are very likely to grow rancid if 
kept. Billy, in the "Limberlost" story, had a 
piece of heavy plank with a hole in it, just big 
enough to let the husked nut through. He put an 
unhulled nut over the hole, then with a wooden 
mallet, he drove it through the hole. It came 
through clean. 

The butternut or oilnut is from a tree closely 
related to the black walnut. It is called also white 
walnut. The husk is not so thick as that of 
the black walnut and adheres stubbornly to the 
nut if left to dry. The nuts get rancid if kept 
warm and should be marketed as soon as dry or 
kept stored in the cold and eaten before spring. 

Pickled walnuts are a highly prized delicacy in 
households where "culturine" has not taken the 
place of old-fashioned household arts. The nuts 
are gathered when green, before the shell has hard- 
ened. If a knitting needle can be pushed clear 
through the nut, it is not too old for pickling. You 
will be fortunate if you can get a receipt from some 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 37 

housewife who has time for real culture as well as 
for making pickles. 

Receipt for Pickled Walnuts. — (From my great 
aunt's cook-book.) Ingredients: One hundred 
walnuts, salt and water, one gallon of vinegar, two 
ounces of whole black pepper, half an ounce of 
cloves, one ounce of allspice, one ounce of root 
ginger sliced, one ounce of mace. 

Gather the nuts in July when they are full grown. 
They should be soft enough to be pierced all through 
with a needle. Prick them all well through. Let 
them remain nine days in brine (four pounds of 
salt to each gallon of water), changing the brine 
every third day. Drain them, and let them remain 
in the sun two or three days until they become 
black. Put them into jars, not quite filling them. 
Boil the vinegar and spices together ten minutes, 
and pour the liquid over the walnuts. They will 
be fit for use in a month, and will keep for years. 

BEECHNUTS 

The boys of your neighbourhood may not know 
that the smooth, gray-barked trees with very long, 
slender, pointed buds are beeches. They may 
never have noticed the wonderful gray-green colour 
nor delicate texture of the newly opened leaves, 



38 OUTDOOR WORK 

nor the soft, silky flower head that bears the pollen. 
Too many boys think these preliminaries are of no 
importance. The chances are strong that when 
October ripens the nuts, nobody has any diflBculty 
in locating beech trees, if there are any in the 
vicinity. Usually, in the wild woods, they grow 
in large groups of various sizes; the big trees shelter- 
ing the little ones until they are strong enough to 
live in the full sunlight. Do boys and girls find 
the beeches by instinct just as the mice, the blue 
jays, the squirrels, and the foraging hogs do? ; 

Do you know why it takes so much longer to 
gather a pint of beechnuts than the same amount 
of hazel-nuts. They are pretty small; yes,r but 
there's another reason. If you were to count 
your beechnuts, you would find it takes many more 
of them by count to make a pint than of the round 
nuts, because of their triangular shape. They fit 
so snugly that your pint measure of beechnuts 
is almost solid nuts. They are about the sweetest 
of the wild nuts. They are very rich in fat too, 
and in olden times an oil for table use was made from 
beechnuts. Olive oil takes its place now and costs 
less. There is a market for all the beechnuts you can 
gather. Dealers in tree seeds often have difficulty in 
filling orders. As the nuts do not germinate till April 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 39 

they may be gathered at any time during the winter, 
unless the wild folks have gathered them all. The 
chances are that to get any you would have to go 
early and search sharply. Once or so in a lifetime 
the burrow of a white-footed mouse is discovered 
near beech woods. Are you hard hearted enough 
not only to break and enter, but also to burgle his 
hoard? Rather admire the little creature's industry 
and resolve to go and do likewise. 

HICKORY NUTS 

America is the only country that has native 
hickory nuts. Of these the best nut producers are 
the shagbarks and the pecans. These two nuts 
are increasingly popular. People are planting these 
nuts and experimenting with new varieties, with 
grafting and cultivation, as never before. Pecan 
orchards are being planted in many regions and 
hickory nuts are being studied with a view to im- 
proving the kernel and reducing the hardness of the 
shell. The value of hickory wood in the making 
of tools and for fuel has made the lumber more 
profitable than the nuts. But with improved 
varieties this may not be true. The poor quality 
of the wood of the pecan has saved these native 
trees from destruction. 



40 OUTDOOR WORK 

Hickory nuts have a husk as every country 
child knows; but the husk has a good-natured 
habit of sphtting neatly into four equal parts which 
fall away from the nut when dry. There are 
several kinds of hickory which produce sweet, 
edible nuts, but the nuts of the true shagbark are 
the best. They grow on low hills near streams or 
swamps in good soil in the Eastern and Middle 
states as far south as Florida, and as far west as 
Kansas. The king nuts of the Mississippi are 
bigger, but not so good, although the price you get 
for them is good and the baskets fill faster than with 
the little shagbarks. 

PECANS 

This nut tree grows in the South, and as the wood 
is too brittle to be very valuable nobody has cut 
it for lumber. Tremendous interest has been aroused 
during the past ten years in pecan growing. Pecan 
orchards are being planted in all sorts of soil, good, 
bad, and indifferent. The wisest planters have 
gone to nature to learn what kind of conditions 
the pecan requires. By cultivation and fertilizing 
and otherwise improving good natural conditions, 
many growers are succeeding. By planting nuts 
from trees that produce fine ones abundantly 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 41 

every year, and by budding these trees with scions 
from still finer specimen trees great improvement 
has been made. I have a picture of a pecan tree 
in Georgia, sixteen years old, which is nearly fifty 
feet high. It has borne already three hundred 
and fifty pounds of nuts and this year's crop will 
be over a hundred pounds. This tree has never 
had to fight weeds, has always had plenty to eat 
and drink, was protected in winter while young, 
and now it is ready to foot all its own bills and 
give a fine profit. How many of us are ready to 
do that at sixteen years? The cultivation of pecans 
is only just begun. Very little of the annual crop 
of these nuts is harvested in orchards. In "The 
Tree Book" the author says that ninety-five per 
cent, of the crop is still gathered in the woods. 
The annual crop is tremendous, and the pickers get 
only three to ten cents a pound for the ungraded 
nuts. For the very best nuts, mainly sold for seed, 
the retail price is from fifty cents to a dollar a 
pound, which is from one to two cents per nut. 

Who picks all these nuts in the woods? Surely, 
the boys and girls of the pecan belt do their share. 
Do they do it in a primitive way or are their 
methods worthy of the up-to-date American 
youngster? Professor Hume of the Florida Agriculture 



42 OUTDOOR WORK 

Experiment Station (Bulletin No. 85, 1906) gives 
suggestions for gathering the pecan crop in the 
orchard which ought to be useful to the "wild 
picker." The nuts ought to be gathered as soon 
as the most of the burs have opened. In orchards, 
the pickers use ladders for young trees and climb 
the big ones and gather the nuts by hand into 
sacks. Beating and shaking the trees is only 
resorted to for the nuts that are entirely out of 
reach. If allowed to fall on the ground so many of 
the nuts are lost that the profits are materially 
lessened. If practicable a large sheet should be 
placed under the tree to save this loss. 

The nuts should be spread under some sort of 
roof to cure, which requires ten days or two weeks. 

Have you ever tried the experiment of sorting 
and grading the nuts you gather.? The fruits of 
wild trees vary greatly in their size and general 
appearance. The wholesale dealer who buys nuts 
undoubtedly grades them and gets a fancy price 
for the big ones. Why should you not benefit 
by this? 

Pecans are graded by sifting them through 
screens, the mesh of which lets only those of small 
size through. You might build up a private trade 
in wild nuts by packing your best nuts in attrac- 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 43 

tive pasteboard boxes and charging a good retail 
rate for them. The inferior nuts you could well 
afford to sell at the lowest wholesale price as your 
average would be higher than the wholesaler would 
pay for unsorted nuts. 

Your fancy nuts would have to be polished in 
order to compete with the nuts sold in city markets. 
The polishing does not make the meat any sweeter, 
but it does make a more attractive dessert 
nut, especially now that folks are used to seeing 
them polished. This is done by putting some dry 
sand into a barrel with the nuts and rolling the 
barrel about till the nuts are polished. If you 
have a worn out barrel or box churn, as we once had, 
that would be just the thing. Fancy packages 
of five to ten pounds would be very much in de- 
mand at Christmas. The big cities are well sup- 
plied with this sort of thing, but in the smaller 
cities and larger towns there are always some people 
who know a good thing when they see it and to 
whom the local markets often fail to supply these 
little luxuries. 

NUT GROWING 

In Bulletin No. 125 of the Maryland Agricultural 
Experiment Station published in 1908 you may read: 



44 OUTDOOR WORK 

"The young and middle-aged should not only plant 
nut trees themselves, but should encourage the 
children to do likewise. Every farm boy ought to 
have a small nut nursery and be taught to plant 
and care for nut trees. Nothing more creditable 
could be done in the schools than to interest the 
boys and girls in the possibilities of nut production 
and to celebrate Arbor Day with the planting of 
nut trees." 

Doesn't that read like sound advice? Think of 
the land on your father's farm to-day that is not 
working. Or if there isn't any idle land can you 
not persuade him to lend you an acre or so for ex- 
perimental purposes? The chances are that he 
will encourage and help you because he wants you 
to be interested in the farm. But you may say 
to yourself: "Not much! I don't mean to stay on 
the farm. I'm going to work hard and get an edu- 
cation. I want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a 
banker." Nevertheless, you take the Maryland 
man's advice and set out some nut trees. Let us 
say you start your nut orchard at age fourteen 
when you have three years yet in the high school. 
Your trees will be set so far apart that some other 
crops will be grown between them; corn, potatoes, 
melons, or anything that requires good cultivation 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 45 

and fertilization. When you finish the high school 
your nut trees will not look very big, but promising. 
You go on to college and in four years you will see 
a big change. No crop is in sight yet but you are 
only twenty-one and ready to go to work. You 
may forget all about those nut trees for a few years 
but they are not forgetting their business. They 
will bear a few nuts some year, as if to try their 
hand at a new enterprise. Some day when you are 
needing a sum of money to start in business for 
yourself, and you are wondering who will lend you 
that much, you will get word from the folks at home 
that they have harvested your first crop of pecans 
or English walnuts or Spanish chestnuts and have 
deposited a thousand dollars in the bank in your 
name as the net profits. Will you try it.? 

Before planting nut trees it is important to learn 
all you can by reading and by correspondence with 
your Experiment Station experts about the kinds 
that will do best in your region and on your soil. 
If more boys used a little forethought we should 
have fewer young college men struggling along 
on small salaries in work they dislike, just for lack 
of a tidy sum of ready money to set them on their 
feet at the critical time. 

There are good reasons for this greater interest in 



46 OUTDOOR WORK 

nut growing in the United States. The use of 
nuts is more common than formerly but they are 
still a luxury. Wild nuts are scarcer, owing to the 
destruction of the trees for lumber. The food value of 
nuts is better understood than formerly, and many 
articles of food are manufactured now from nuts. 
Nuts as meat substitutes have come into prominence 
within a few years. This creates a demand which 
will increase. There is no danger of over-production. 
Now is the time to get into the nut business. 

TREE SEEDS 

In his book on "Forestry" Professor Gifford says; 
"Collection of tree seeds should yield good returns 
if properly conducted." That is good news, for 
if ever a crop was allowed to go to waste it is this 
crop of tree seeds. Any one who has seen a forest 
of young maples cut down by lawn mowers in the 
helplessness of their seed-leaf stage realizes that 
with any sort of forethought those seeds might 
have been made a source of income. 

Professor Gifford says a little farther on that 
many of the seeds of our native trees can be more 
easily obtained in Europe than in America. We 
may learn many lessons in economy from our neigh- 
bours over there. 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 47 

But who is going to harvest the tree seeds? 
A mechanic who earns a good wage cannot 
afford to gather tree seeds; neither can a bank 
clerk unless he does the work in his vacation. 
But our boys and girls are often at a loss to find 
ways of earning money. Here is a crop they can 
gather without danger of trespassing. There is 
a market for this harvest. Some tree seeds are 
dijQScult to get and expensive; red pine for instance. 
Spruce trees produce seed only once in seven years. 
This keeps the supply short. In a spruce seed year 
every seed should be gathered. Pecks of hard 
maple seeds are swept up by street cleaners every 
year on our home street. They are worth a lot of 
money, yet the boys on the street never have all 
the cash they want to buy baseball gloves and circus 
tickets and bicycles. No enterprising reader of this 
book need ever lack for pocket money. 

Remember, Professor Gifford said, "Collection 
of tree seeds should yield good returns if properly 
conducted y Every business to be successful must 
be conducted properly. There are some simple 
principles. You need not be an expert forester but 
the more you know about trees the better. If a 
dealer buys six quarts of re(Z maple seeds of you he 
will be disappointed if you send him silver maple. 



48 OUTDOOR WORK 

discouraged if you send him sugar maple, and dis- 
gruntled if you send him ash. Furthermore, he 
will not send you the money nor any orders for more. 
If there is a maple tree with a peck of seed on it 
in your yard, in five minutes or less time you can 
find out what kind it is with "The Tree Book." 
Before the seeds are ripe write to a several seed 
men and tell them what you have; ask if they want 
any, at what price, and on what date. Some trees 
ripen their seeds in the spring, shake them off, and 
let the wind scatter them. In the case of some 
kinds, the seeds sprout within a few days after they 
reach the ground. These should be gathered as soon 
as ripe, spread out to dry for a few days, and 
planted within a few weeks at latest. Seeds of other 
kinds do not grow till the following spring. None 
of these should be allowed to dry too thoroughly. 
Nuts and acorns for seed should not be allowed to 
get dry over winter. These should be packed in 
moist sand and kept cool but not frozen. Cherry, 
plum and peach pits are better for being frozen. 

The supply of white pine seed is never equal to 
the demand. The market price is said to vary from 
two dollars fifty cents to four dollars fifty cents per 
pound. You get a little over a pound of seeds 
from a'bushel of unopened cones. White pine trees 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 49 

require two years to mature their cones and they 
set seed only once in every four or five years. But 
every year there will be some trees bearing seed, 
Nineteen hundred and four was a big "on" year in 
the New York white pine forests. You can tell 
when the tiny cones first appear that a crop is com- 
ing. The cones should be watched as August 
wanes and gathered before they open. September 
is the month as a general thing. Boys can earn 
thirty cents or so a bushel gathering the full cones. 
But I should not be satisfied to let the other fellow 
get all the profits just because he knows how 
to cure and market the seed. That is easy. Spread 
the cones out in the barn to dry. Slat trays are best 
to get free circulation of air. You can make these 
at odd times before the crop is ready. A fanning 
mill comes in handy to thrash and free them from 
rubbish and imperfect seed. Market them imme- 
diately to avoid loss. If you are to keep the seed for 
home consumption, mix with dry sand and store in 
a cool but not too dry place. If allowed to dry 
or freeze and thaw they lose their vitality. Tree 
seeds need pretty careful handling. 

Any one interested in gathering tree seeds should 
get information from books and bulletins on forestry. 
He should write to firms who make a specialty of 



50 OUTDOOR WORK 

selling tree seeds and they will help him by giving 
directions about the treatment of seeds. 

Did you ever wonder where the nursery men get 
the thousands of apple trees they sell every year? 
Go a step back of the budding or grafting that is 
done in the nursery. Where did the little tree come 
from whose top was cut off after the first bud was 
set.^^ It came from a seed; just any apple seed. And 
where do apple seeds come from.^* From apples.'^ 
Yes, just any apples. Did you ever make cider 
on your farm? You put in whole apples, skin, core, 
stem, seeds, and all; shovelled them into the hopper. 
The pulp was squeezed dry and thrown away, 
wasn't it, at your cider mill? That is proof of the 
wastefulness of some good farmers. If the pulp 
were washed in tubs, the seeds would find the 
bottom (or the top) and they would bring a good 
price per pound. 

COLLECTING CHRISTMAS GREENS 

Once upon a time everybody who wanted Christ- 
mas greens had the fun of gathering his own. That 
was in the generation when all the grandmothers 
lived in the country and only the plain fathers and 
mothers and children lived in the cities. But now 
we children have grown up and our children want 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 51 

to go to grandmother's house for Christmas just as 
we did. Can't you imagine how surprised and 
disappointed they are to find their grandmothers 
hving in city houses, even in flats ? Didn't we 
tell them about going out to gather holly and 
mistletoe and ground pine and hemlock and 
even how we used to cut the Christmas tree itself 
in grandpa's w^oods? In the middle West where 
Christmas trees do not grow in the woods we used 
to choose a shapely young oak. To make it look 
like an evergreen we used to get grandpa to go out 
with his big jack-knife and cut off the largest 
branches he could spare from the evergreens in the 
door yard. With good, strong twine we tied these 
to the branches of the oak. When all the decorations 
were on and the oranges and the apples and the 
popcorn strings and the candles and the presents, 
we children who had never seen a real live Christ- 
mas tree couldn't have told the difference. We 
didn't even mind the fact that some of the oak's 
outer branches were pine, some were spruce, some 
were cedar. It was all evergreen to us and all 
Christmassy. We were easy to please. 

But now — alas! The gathering of Christmas 
greens has been commercialized. It has ceased to 
be fun, and has become a business. The boys and 



52 OUTDOOR WORK 

girls may share in the profits and perhaps get some 
fun out of it if they go about it right. 

Holly, which of all the Christmas greens is the 
most popular, is a hardy and beautiful tree, which 
grows wild in great numbers in the Southern states 
and in the Chesapeake region. Many country 
boys and girls make easy Christmas money from 
the holly trees in their own woods. To these boys 
and girls I want to say "Don't kill the goose that 
lays the golden egg." A tree with fine berries on 
it this year will, if treated right, produce a good 
crop again in a few years. Pruning is good for 
a tree, but brutally hacking its head out destroys 
the tree's future, and the boy who does it is not a 
good citizen. 

Holly wood is close grained, light, and tough and 
is valuable in some forms of cabinet work. Here 
is an industry that might be developed as a side 
issue in the holly trade. 

The best market calls for holly wreaths. I have 
a picture of a girl of fourteen who can make sixty 
wreaths in a day and she gets six and a half cents 
for each. That is good wages for a girl of her age, 
but she must get pretty tired making wreaths every 
minute all day long. If she could help her brothers 
gather the holly for part of the time, it would be 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 53 

easier on her back. The wreaths are made on 
frames of twigs, twisted into circles, and tied. 
Young twigs of any flexible shrub are used. 
Somebody has to gather these. It is a wonder 
that more holly trees are not planted in door 
yards. And wouldn't it be a good idea for some 
boys to begin a plantation of holly now so they can 
reap the harvest later .^^ Holly will not go out of 
fashion in a great many years. But at the present 
rate the supply cannot last. The amount used 
every year is past belief. From one small railway 
station 150,000 wreaths! One year, several carloads 
were burned because the market was overstocked. 
The time has come already when raising Christ- 
mas trees is necessary. They still come up like 
weeds in the woods where enough mature ones 
are left to seed the bared hillsides. The harvest 
begins in November and the trees are cut and 
sorted, roped to preserve their branches, in bundles 
of eight or less or singly, and stacked along the 
roads to await shipment. Hundreds of thousands 
are harvested every year. "No-Christmas-tree" 
clubs are being formed now to try to stop this waste- 
fulness. We go too much to extremes. One Christ- 
mas tree used to be enough for all the grandchil- 
dren; but nowadays every one must have his 



54 OUTDOOR WORK 

own. If our children's children are to have real 
Christmas trees the boys of to-day must plant 
the seeds of the beloved balsam fir. 

The man who discovers and makes popular a 
new kind of Christmas greens does everybody a 
good turn. One of the most remarkable "ten- 
strikes" ever made along this line was a sort of 
accident. A man who calls himself "Caldwell, 
the woodsman," describes his experience as follows: 
"It was several weeks before I found the ever- 
green that was to make the town of Evergreen, 
Ala., famous throughout the decorative world. 
Wandering through the woods one day, my atten- 
tion was attracted to a beautiful green vine hanging 
from the topmost limb of a small dead oak. I 
caught hold of the vine and pulled it down, and was 
much astonished at the ease with which it came out 
of the tree, and the fact that it seemed in no way 
injured by my rough treatment. On carrying it 
to my new home, I arranged it around the mirror 
in my room, and, after leaving it there for about 
a week or ten days, found that it was as fresh and 
green as ever." 

Mr. Caldwell saw that in wild Southern smilax he 
had found a plant that possessed all the good points 
required for wholesale decorations. It is used 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 55 

everywhere now. City florists cannot get enough 
of it. The plant is a perennial, renewing itself 
every year, and grows in greatest profusion in its 
wild habitat. He had an uphill job, though, 
convincing the fashionable florists of the value of 
this plant. But he persevered and now he ships 
five thousand cases of it a year at an average profit 
of one dollar per case. 

Young long-leaf pines grow in the South and are 
now used extensively for Christmas decoration in 
the North. It seems a pity to kill a pine tree every 
time one of these is cut, but in places where the 
seedlings come up too thick for good forest growth 
cutting out some is a benefit . If only the gatherers 
would be conservers as well! 

The collecting of ferns in the woods is a busi- 
ness suited to the country boys and girls. This 
has grown to a really great enterprise since the rage 
for country things has struck city people. There 
is some sham about every fad of this kind, but the 
fern gatherers are not shamming. They do the 
real work. To succeed in this, one must not work 
haphazard. He must know just what his customer 
wants, and the buyer must know just what the col- 
lector can supply. Ferns is a big group of plants, 
and some of them you couldn't sell. If Christmas 



56 OUTDOOR WORK 

ferns grow plentifully in your woods, you can gather 
them by the thousand fronds. But will the 
florist buy those leaves which have the brown 
spots (or spores) on the under side? Find out 
before you waste your time. Those spores are 
more valuable in the woods than on the garbage 
heap. The boys who pull the plants up by the 
roots are killing their own goose. The fern can 
spare all the perfect leaves you find on it in the fall 
without much if any damage. A new crop will 
be forthcoming next year if the roots are undis- 
turbed. Scissors and care used in gathering only 
good leaves will pay now, as well as in the future. 

There are a number of wild things that deserve 
more popularity. Bitter-sweet is lovely and lasts 
forever, nearly. You seldom see it in the market, 
though. Sumach too, has great decorative value, 
yet whoever saw it in a florist's window.'^ Cat- 
tails, pussy willows, spice bush, dogwood flowers 
and berries, Solomon's seal, and a score of other 
wild flowers are already in use. But there are others 
you may be able to introduce to city people. It 
is surprising what they will buy and admire if it 
comes from the country. I rode on a suburban 
car one day behind an armful of poison ivy. It 
was brilliantly beautiful and I suspect the gatherer 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 57 

wished I had kept still when I told her what it was. 
If she hadn't had a child with her, I should have 
let her risk it. Maybe she was immune. Most 
people are. The funniest thing I ever saw for sale 
was a basket of skunk-cabbage flowers on Broadway. 
The shrewd old farmer who had them for sale got 
a quarter for two. He called them Japanese lilies. 
I wonder that the winter berry has not found more 
favour for decoration. Two kinds of shrubs with 
this name are common in our Northern woods. 
They are both hollies, but, unlike the Southern 
holly, lose their leaves. One has bright orange- 
coloured berries, the other is covered with a great 
profusion of bright scarlet fruits. Nothing could 
be more effective in a large vase in a dark corner. 
They light up handsomely at night or in the sunlight. 

MEDICINAL PLANTS 

There are a good many kinds of aromatic roots 
and medicinal plants which are kept in stock at 
drug stores. Some of them are rare and bring a 
good price; like golden seal at a dollar or over per 
pound. Digitalis in the drug store is foxglove in 
the garden; but who ever thinks of gathering its 
leaves and finding a market for them.'* Somebody 
must or the supply would run out. The leaves of 



58 OUTDOOR WORK 

the second year's growth are dried for medicinal 

uses. 

Wild ginger root is used in preserves and for 
confectionery. I have seen it in market and won- 
dered who gathered it. Preserved calamus root, 
too; who buys that unless it is Br'er Rabbit.'^ There 
is a Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture on 
"Weeds Used in Medicine" that you ought to have. 
The list of weeds used in medicine will certainly 
surprise the unenlightened. How do you know that 
your doctor isn't dosing you with burdock, dandelion, 
dock, pokeweed, foxglove, mullein, tansy, boneset, 
catnip, horehound, fleabane, yarrow, or jimson 
weed? All these and many more common weeds are 
collected by somebody, dried, and used in medicine. 

POKEWEED 

Pokeweed roots are poisonous. The berries are 
not. They are used to make a syrup with which 
to colour frosting for cakes and the like. Receipts 
for this are to be found in many cook books. 
But the best part of pokeweed is not the fruit. 
In early spring, when asparagus is expensive and 
scarce, the pokeweed shoots grow rank and as thick 
as your thumb in fence corners. They will take 
entire possession of a large garden in two years if 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 59 

given the least encouragement. I cut the stems 
when about a foot in height. They are covered with 
short leaves which are best removed except at the 
end of the shoot. Cook exactly like asparagus, 
and dress with butter or cream. They resemble 
asparagus somewhat, but are more delicate in flavour 
and less woody in texture. 

WALKING STICKS 

I once knew a stubborn man who was convinced 
that an unproductive orchard full of old gnarled 
trees on his place was good for nothing but firewood. 
He had the trunks cut into stove lengths and then 
burned the brush in ten huge piles. As the last 
pile was about to be fired, a manufacturer of umbrella 
handles offered him ten dollars for what was left. 
Imagine his feelings! Thousands of handsome 
walking sticks and umbrella handles are made of 
apple, cherry, and such woods. The makers can- 
not get enough of it and yet every year how much 
salable wood must be burned in the form of prun- 
ings. There is a true story of a young man in 
Florida who paid his way through college by col- 
lecting orange wood suitable for walking sticks. 
This wood is still popular for the same purpose, and 
the idea is worth passing along. 




Walking sticks decorated by 
nature 



OUTDOOR WORK 

Roots of quaint or gro- 
tesque shape are often found 
in the woods and may be 
used as handles of umbrellas 
or walking sticks. I have a 
stick made of a small sapling 
upon which a branch of bit- 
ter-sweet had entwined. As 
the sapling grew in circum- 
ference, the coils of the 
climber had not been loosen- 
ed but had become imbedded 
in the wood of the little tree. 
The long vine was not cut 
off, but trimmed and wound 
round and round at the head 
of the stick to make it large 
enough to grasp comfortably. 
Such a stick is an interesting 
gift for a friend. 

Another pretty bit of na- 
ture's handiwork is a walking 
stick engraved by the en- 
graver beetle. These little 
insects make their burrows 
just under the bark and they 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 61 

often work on small branches of a great variety of for- 
est trees. Remove a bit of loose bark and ten to one 
you will find it carved with a more or less intricate de- 
sign by the engraver beetle. Could you do as neat a 
piece of work.'^ A thorough brushing and oiling are all 
that such a stick needs to make it an ornament to 
the hat-rack. 

Sticks intended for handles or canes cannot be 
bent when dry. They should be steamed until 
flexible or buried in hot, wet sand till you can shape 
them. Boiling for a half-hour will sometimes make 
a piece supple. Fasten in the desired shape with 
stout cords and dry thoroughly before releasing. 
Sticks that are slightly crooked may be straightened 
by putting them into a bundle with perfectly straight 
pieces and winding with strong rope; let them dry 
in this bundle. Sticks which are to be peeled should 
be partially dried first but not by artificial heat. 
Rapid drying is likely to split the stick. 

WILD FLOWERS FOR CITY CHILDREN 

Children who live in the country part or all of 
the year do not know how much pleasure they 
might give if they would gather wild flowers and 
send them to city children. There is a society which 



62 HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 

distributes flowers thus collected in New York 
but maybe there is none in the city near you. 
The commonest flowers, even the weeds like daisies 
and dandelions and black-eyed Susans, are eagerly 
taken home by children who are so poor that they 
never even saw a park, much less a meadow. In 
one city school over two hundred children had never 
seen a dandelion. A lady once started with a bunch 
of daisies to give to a city friend. She was met at 
the ferry with, *' Please give me a flower." She 
went on up the street. *' Won't chu gimme one o'yer 
flowers.'*" Children seemed to appear from every 
direction; maybe they were always there and she 
had not noticed them before. The grown-up friend 
did not get any flowers but she got a good story 
instead. Mr. Jacob Riis founded a flower mission 
on a similar experience. It is fun to gather flowers 
anyhow, and if you can make some other child 
happy even for a few minutes it would be even 
more fun. This is only a hint. 

SHELF FUNGI 

Have you seen those outgrowths on dying and 
dead trees which stand out like a shelf.'* They 
are called bracket or shelf fungi. If you have an 
artist friend who can make beautiful things on 




Photograph by Verne Morton 

Gathering Wild Flowers for City Children 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 63 

these by carving them with Httle engraving tools, 
gather all you see for her. 

DANDELION GREENS 

Do your folks cook dandelion greens? Mine 
never did but since seeing them for sale at so much 
per half-peck I have come to think that they must 
be eatable and have wished we had gathered and 
sold the bushels that grew in our lawn. 

CORN HUSKS 

Corn husks is a crop that used to be more eagerly 
harvested than now. In the corn belt, where the 
husking is done in the field, the husk is left on the 
stalk and would therefore be hard to get. But 
where corn is snapped, husk and all, and left to be 
husked at leisure in field or barn, the husks can be 
saved with profit. For summer beds they are cheap- 
er and softer than hay. For porch cushions they 
are far superior to excelsior. For braiding into 
mats they are really valuable, and well-made ones 
bring a good price. 

Cornstalks yield another crop that is little known. 
Collectors of insects use thin sheets of cornstalk 
pith to line their insect boxes. It is peculiarly 



64 OUTDOOR WORK 

adapted to this purpose. They cannot get a large 
supply of it, yet what boy in any great corn state 
could not get a ton of it if he had the gumption. 
Ask the entomology man in your state Experiment 
Station, if he needs cornstalk pith. If you live in 
a cactus country, ask him if he could use thin 
slices of the pith from the flower stalk of the 
giant cacti. 

FRAGRANT HERBS AND GRASSES 

Of the fragrant herbs, grasses, and shrubs which 
nature provides, nothing is more in demand than 
sweet grass. In the parts of the country where it 
is abundant, people still gather and cure it and make 
useful baskets and mats of it. Sometimes it is 
combined with birch bark or porcupine quills or 
both by skilful Indian women who learned how 
from their grandmothers. The good market for 
such things will keep the art of basket making from 
becoming a lost one. 

Indian maidens are not the only ones who have 
learned basket weaving. Indeed this has almost 
taken the place of patchwork, for girls, except in 
very old-fashioned families. Clever girls will not 
be content to use only such conventional materials 
as raffia and reeds. Often the colours of those you 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 65 

buy are so crude that you cannot make really artis- 
tic things of them. Some of the native grasses, 
flower stalks, strips of palmetto, rushes, soft inner 
corn husks, cat-tail leaves, and sedges are used. 
One basket maker has used the shiny brown stems 
of maidenhair ferns and the effect is very pretty. 
Another uses long pine needles in her weaving. 
Most of these materials are unfit for use when dry 
and brittle, but books on basketry tell just how they 
can be made pliable. Grasses are usually at their 
best just after flowering. 

The dried leaves of sweet fern, sweet clover in 
blossom, balsam fir, and bayberry make sweet 
smelling cushions and bags for bureau drawers 
and couches. 

BALSAM LEAVES 

In gathering what you hear called "pine needles" 
for pillows be sure you have the right kind of trees 
before you begin to gather the leaves. Pine needles 
are long and stiff and sharp. A pillow made of 
dried ones would not be a very fragrant nor a very 
comfortable thing. What you want is the short, 
soft leaves of balsam fir. These retain their whole- 
some odour after being dried. In five minutes you 
can learn to tell the balsam from spruce, hemlock, 



66 OUTDOOR WORK 

and cedar, the other common short-leaved native 
evergreens. 

BIRCH BARK 

Camping parties often leave a trail of devasta- 
tion behind them which would shock the most 
hardened and wasteful one of the lot. This is 
largely if not entirely because they are ignorant, 
not because they are intentionally breakers of the 
laws of the woods. Indeed they are probably very 
ardent believers in the theory of conservation. 
Has it never occurred to them to practise it.^^ 

In the matter of collecting birch bark much dam- 
age has been done. Some people in whom you have 
confidence say: "Oh, no. It doesn't hurt the tree." 
So you strip off layer after layer; such a fascinating 
occupation, I do not wonder you hardly know when 
to stop. But read what Miss Rogers says in "The 
Tree Book:" "The feminine tourist in Northern 
woods loses no time in supplying herself with birch 
bark note-paper. The bark is usually removed in 
thick plates, from which the thin sheets may be 
stripped at leisure. These sheets are orange-col- 
oured, with a faint purplish bloom upon them 
and darker purplish lines. Alas! for the zeal of these 
tourists. They usually cut too deep, and the strip 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 67 

that tears off so evenly girdles and kills the tree, 
because nothing is left to protect the living cam- 
bium. A black band (of mourning) soon marks 
the doomed tree, and it eventually snaps off in the 
wind." 

I know a girl who killed thirty-seven beautiful 
birch trees before any one showed her how she could 
get plenty of bark and leave some for the tree 
beside. She was perfectly horrified when she 
realized what she had done. So few people know 
that the live part of the tree is not at the heart — 
that is quite dead — but just under the skin. Cut 
off the bark in any large quantities and your tree 
falls an easy prey to disease. 

Hiawatha was not the first Indian to use the 
canoe birch for practical puposes. His ancestors 
used this bark for all sorts of utensils, dishes, baskets, 
buckets, and for their canoes. They sewed the 
pieces together with fibrous roots and filled the 
cracks with wild gum or pitch. The Indians of 
nowadays have degenerated and the things they 
make have become less artistic. I lately saw a 
buckskin pouch, decorated with exquisitely woven 
bead work, in simple but charming design. It was 
a piece of real Indian handiwork, but the whole 
effect was spoiled by a lining of coarse red and blue 



68 OUTDOOR WORK 

and green gingham and the pouch flap was secured 
by a thong looped over a large white agate shirt 
button! 

In trying to imitate the Indians at their game of 
making things out of birch bark, quills, sweet grass, 
and other natural materials, let us keep clear of the 
shops and use only what combines naturally and 
artistically. 

PORCUPINE QUILLS 

"Give me of your quills, O hedgehog!" Hia- 
watha was talking to a porcupine, for the chances 
are that he never saw a hedgehog. Poets ought 
to know better than to confuse their "critters." 

A real Indian boy in the woods knows that por- 
cupines give up their quills all too willingly. 
It is strange that the wild beasts of prey and the 
domestic dogs cannot learn this and let the por- 
cupine alone. They have no quarrel with him. He 
eats the bark of trees, and goes about his own affairs. 
There isn't a word of truth in the story of his shoot- 
ing his quifls. No doubt he would if he could, if 
sore pressed, but he can't. He bristles them up 
when attacked and then woe be to the tender nose 
that touches the sharp points! The quills let go 
of their original owner very easily, but being barbed 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 69 

on their outer end they bury themselves in the soft 
parts of the attacking animal. With no thought of 
revenge in his rather witless head, the porcupine 
may pronounce the death sentence on his captor. 

Porcupines are hunted for their quills and easily 
captured by men as they are slow and awkward. 
The quills take a pretty polish and their cream white 
and shaded brown colours blend softly with the 
tints of birch bark and wild grasses v/ith which they 
are combined by basket and mat weavers. 

MAPLE SUGAR MAKING 

Most of the fifty million or so pounds of maple sugar 
made in this country is made in six states, Vermont, 
New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New 
Hampshire. The boys and girls of these states have 
exceptional opportunities of studying the mysteries 
of tree life and of sharing the bounty the maples 
provide. I was not brought up in any one of the 
above-named states, yet I remember the maple 
sugar making in the woods along the river. One 
of my early recollections is of a party of Indian 
women, on piebald ponies, bringing fascinating 
heart-shaped cakes of maple sugar to exchange 
at the farm for fresh meat. Theirs were no pale, 
ansemic, delicate squares of creamy texture, but 



70 OUTDOOR WORK 

ruddy and hard. Less discriminating than now, we 
children ate with reHsh the coarse sugar almost 
black from the bits of bark, chips of leaves, and twigs 
which had undoubtedly been boiled with it. Nor 
did we innocents turn from it with loathing when 
told by a teasing uncle that its colour was due to the 
sirup having been strained by the Indians through 
their blankets. We didn't believe it then and I 
don't yet. How very bad for the blankets! 
The Indians discovered the maple sugar industry 
long before they themselves were discovered by 
white people. They taught our New England 
ancestors how to tap the trees and boil down the 
sirup and how to "sugar off." They had little or 
no sugar except what the maples supplied. The 
Indians had very primitive ways of tapping the 
trees, collecting the sap, boiling, and sugaring. 
These ways have been improved in the last three 
hundred years. Although wooden buckets and home- 
made spiles made of sumach branches may still be 
used where only a few trees are tapped, the up-to- 
date sugar maker has modern, patent, covered 
buckets, spouts, and evaporators. He uses a ther- 
mometer and knows "for sure" when to shut off 
his fire if he wants to make sirup, and how high the 
temperature may go to make the best sugar. He 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 71 

knows, too, whether he can afford to make sugar 
which tests eighty per cent, or ninety per cent, pure 
and get the bounty, if his state pays one, or if it 
costs him less labour and expense to sell his entire 
product in the form of sirup. 

But scientific methods can never take away the 
charm of maple sugar making. There is so much 
yet to be learned from the trees about the whys and 
wherefores of their behaviour during the harvest, 
that our interest in maple products increases as our 
interest in mere "sweets" decreases. 

If you have a "sugar bush" planted by your 
great-grandfather, the chances are that you have had 
annual opportunities to help in making sugar, ever 
since you could drive a horse on frosty mornings 
to collect the sap. But I am going to suppose that 
during the winter you have been reading "Trees 
Every Child Should Know" and have been identi- 
fying the trees about your home. The maples are 
about the easiest trees to identify when leafless. 
Suppose you have found several maple trees, 
good big ones, right in your own door yard. The 
hard or sugar maple is the one most frequently used 
for sugar making, but experiments show that soft 
maples make good sugar too. It isn't worth while 
to tap trees in winter. The sugar is in them all 



72 OUTDOOR WORK 

right because the leaves were storing up the starch 
all summer. This starch has been changed to sugar 
in the living cells of the wood. But you couldn't 
get any of it until the sap begins to run. It does 
this with the first warm, sunny days of February. 
After locating all the trees you expect to tap, 
you must make some preparations so that you will 
not lose any time at the critical moment. I knew 
one boy who got his bit and brace out the first thing, 
bored a hole in the tree trunk, and lost about a 
gallon of sap before he could get a spile and a pail 
ready to catch it. You want a spile or spout for 
every pail and a pail for every tree. The patent 
spouts have a hook upon which the bucket hangs. 
If you use sumach spiles you may have to set the 
bucket on the ground where it is likely to get dirt 
in it, tip over, and it is so far from the spile that the 
wind blows the sap away from the pail entirely. 
The pails should be generous in size unless you expect 
to collect the sap more than once a day. An aver- 
age yield per day is five quarts per hole. The pails 
and spiles should be in readiness before *' sugar 
weather" begins. Beside the pails and spouts 
you need a wooden mallet, and a bit and brace or 
small auger for the outdoor work; a kettle for 
boiling down, a large jar to put the fresh sap in, and 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 73 

a dipper to dip it out, a strainer and a skimmer for 
the indoor work. If you boil your sap outdoors 
using cheap fuel you will make more out of your 
enterprise than if you use coal or gas. A good 
sap-running day is a warm, sunny day after a frosty 
night. While the days and nights are about the 
same temperature the sap does not run much. 

The best place to tap a tree is about four feet 
from the ground, and fortunately that is the easiest 
place to work with the auger or bit. The bit should 
be bright and sharp; a dull, rusty bit makes a shabby 
hole in the wood with a lot of woody shreds which 
clog the flow of sap. Clean out the hole, as any 
chips left in stop the flow in the same way. The bit 
or auger used should be about one half inch in 
diameter. A bigger hole might give more sap but 
would injure the tree more. The tree fills up the 
smaller hole in a few years with new tissue. The 
hole should not be deeper than three inches. It 
is a mistake to think that the centre of the tree 
holds the sap. As a matter of fact there is less 
there than anywhere else and more as you near the 
surface. The living, active part of the tree is just 
under the bark. It is necessary to say this over 
and over again so that people will get it into 
their minds. The Indians used to tap the trees 



74 OUTDOOR WORK 

on the south side because they said more sap came 
from that side. Experiments show that on warm, 
sunny days, this is the case. On cloudy days, how- 
ever, sap comes about equally from holes on all 
sides. If the trees have been tapped before, it is 
best to tap at some distance from the old places. 
The size of the auger and spile should be the same 
and the latter should be forced in tightly, and not 
fall out when the pail is full. 

Pure sap makes the clearest sirup and the lightest- 
coloured sugar. Every bit of dust, leaves, twigs, or 
bark that gets into the pail leaves its mark on the 
sugar even though strained out. So covers on the 
pails are preferred if one can afford them. Most 
of the sap runs between nine o'clock in the morning 
and noon. It has been found by tests that this 
morning sap has more sugar in it than that which 
runs later in the day. It is the custom in some 
places to throw away the ice if the sap freezes. 
This is very wasteful, for this ice contains about 
thirty per cent, of the sugar. Of course, melting ice 
is expensive business so one must try not to let his 
sap freeze. The sap in the storage jar or tank must 
not be allowed to get warm, though, as it may sour. 
It should be boiled as soon after gathering as pos- 
sible to ensure best results. 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 75 

Maple sap contains other ingredients beside 
water and sugar. In boiling, the water passes off 
in steam and the sugar and other solids remain. 
The changes in colour from clear sap to dark brown 
sugar is caused by the action of the heat upon the 
sugar and other substances. All sugar makers know 
that the hghtest coloured sirup and sugar can be 
made from the earliest run of sap. That is because, 
as the season advances, more of the lime, potash, 
magnesia, and other substances are present in the 
sap. You see the tree does not stop work just be- 
cause you tap it; and the sap is changing every day 
until, by the time the buds begin to open, the sap is 
so changed that it does not make good sugar at all. 

Water boils when it reaches two hundred and 
twelve degrees, Fahrenheit, as any thermometer will 
tell you. In fact, you cannot heat water hotter 
than two hundred and twelve degrees, for at that 
temperature the water becomes steam. A mix- 
ture of sugar and water will not boil at two hun- 
dred and twelve degrees but requires a higher tem- 
perature. Therefore, as the water passes off the sap 
in boiling, and as the amount of sugar per gallon 
increases, it gets hotter and hotter. It is necessary 
to watch boiling sap carefully to avoid burning. 
In making sirup it is important to have it just 



76 OUTDOOR WORK 

thick enough to taste right and not so thick that it 
will granulate. Sirup that weighs eleven pounds to 
the gallon has long been considered as "just right," 
and it has been found by testing that if you take 
the sirup off the fire just as soon as the thermometer 
registers two hundred and nineteen degrees it will 
weigh eleven pounds to the gallon and will not 
granulate. If you take it off when the thermom- 
eter says two hundred and sixteen degrees your 
sirup will be a pretty fair article, but you cannot 
expect to get as good a price for it, because it has 
more water in it than there should be in a prime 
article. 

When the sirup has boiled down to nearly two 
hundred and nineteen degrees, it is necessary to pour 
it off or strain it through thick cloths to take out 
the dark-coloured impurities. After this the sirup 
is heated again to boiling point and sealed in jars 
or cans. 

A gallon of sirup will make between eight and 
ten pounds of sugar. Can you afford to make your 
sirup into sugar at this rate? It will depend upon 
the relative price of sugar and sirup, the cost of 
your fuel and the value of your time and whether 
your market wants sugar or sirup. There is a 
good and increasing demand for pure maple prod- 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 77 

ucts, especially in the form of confectionery. If you 
can work up a market for fancy maple sugar in the 
form of bonbons it will bring a fancy price. This 
is not so hard as it sounds but it takes enterprise 
and gumption and perseverance and knack. Here 
is a job where brothers and sisters can work together 
to very great advantage and add to their store of 
college money by discovering and harvesting a 
crop right at home which in many cases has been 
neglected for decades. If you have city cousins 
they will help you sell your products among their 
mates. It will pay you to prepare small sample 
parcels, enough to whet the appetite but not enough 
to satisfy. I remember receiving a number of 
packages of maple cream from a Vermont friend. 
The price per pound was equal to that of the 
finest candy and I wanted to share with all my 
friends. But I couldn't afford to give away pound 
packages to everybody. I might have created a 
large demand for this delicious confectionery, had 
I been able to get sample packages to give to 
friends. This year I am to have them. 

It adds wonderfully to the attractiveness of 
maple sugar to have each cake or bonbon wrapped 
in its own piece of waxed paper. This is a kind of 
guarantee of dainty handling that is appreciated by 



78 OUTDOOR WORK 

the purchaser. A shoe box is hardly a dainty parcel, 
yet I know of one unimaginative maple sugar man 
who packs his cakes in just such boxes. There is a 
chance for some one to "make a hit" in this line. 

WILD RICE 

Wild rice sells for two or three times the price of 
ordinary rice and the supply never meets the de- 
mand. 

"But who wants it and what for.^^" 

Wild rice is not likely to become a popular break- 
fast food except among the O jib ways, yet a lot of 
time and effort have been spent on trying to find out 
how to grow crops of it. The reason for this is that 
nothing fattens wild ducks, geese, and other game 
birds quite so satisfactorily. Where the wild rice 
flourishes there is the hunter's paradise in Septem- 
ber. This is reason enough for wanting to grow 
wild rice. When our true American sportsmen 
awoke to the fact that game was scarce and realized 
why, they set about protecting the wild fowl and 
studying their habits so as to better supply ideal 
conditions for the remnant to increase. This is con- 
servation and boys that help in such enterprises are 
truly patriotic citizens. 

Wild rice grows in swamps, shallow lakes, and 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 79 

sluggish rivers covering immense areas in the 
Mississippi Valley and the middle North-western 
states. Mud is a necessity to its growth. It 
grows taller than a man's height above the water 
and its seed comes in a loose spray at the very top 
of each stalk. The plants die every year and 
new ones come up from seed. The grain begins to 
ripen early in September and keeps on until heavy 
frosts. This is all right for ducks but it makes 
harvesting a very difficult task. The Indian 
women of the wild rice regions go out and shake the 
heads over their boats. They have to go again and 
again. If they left it till all the grain had ripened 
they would get very little seed, because the wild 
rice falls as soon as it is ripe and lies in the mud 
till spring. The long-hid secret of the many failures 
to get wild rice to grow from seed was discovered 
by some scientist to be this habit of lying in the mud 
over winter. Thoroughly dried seed does not 
germinate. 

Wild rice is queer looking stuff. The grains are 
black and very long and slender. Some of them 
are an inch long. It is said by some to be very good 
eating, especially as prepared by the Indians. 
They parch it usually, but sometimes it is made into 
a sort of porridge and eaten with maple sugar. 



80 OUTDCMDR WORK 

Practically, the best market for wild rice will 
always be amongst the wild fowl and it is a sports- 
man-like act to gather the seed and propagate it 
for their sake. 

GATHERING SPRUCE GUM 

If spruce gum were used only in the manufacture 
of "chewing-gum" we had much better let the crop 
go unharvested. It serves a useful purpose in the 
tree which produces it. When you have a cut or 
bruise you like to put something on it that excludes 
the air. The tree acts on the same principle. The 
live part of the tree is just underneath the bark. 
Trees are liable to many kinds of injuries. The 
winter winds strain them sometimes to the point of 
splitting, a heedless woodsman blazes the bark in 
passing, wild creatures gnaw or scratch the trunks, 
a woodpecker digs a hole through the bark. Any 
injury of the living layer is like a "hurry call" to 
the cells where the resin is stored. These cells 
are the health department. They send out to the 
injured part a covering of balm, a salve which 
seals the wound effectually from contact with the 
air. We cannot say that the tree knows that the 
air is full of the germs of decay and that to let them 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 81 

get a foothold means decay and sure death; but 
the tree has something that serves the same purpose 
as knowledge. 

Physicians make use of the resinous gums in 
preparing medicines, and druggists always try to 
keep a stock of spruce gum on hand. Collectors 
find their best market for it in the drug trade. The 
best quality brings as high as one dollar and fifty 
cents a pound, while one dollar a pound is not too 
much to expect for the average collection. 

All the spruces yield gum, but the best quality 
is said to come from the white spruce. The first 
thing to do then is to learn to recognize this tree 
on sight. It will take you and a tree book to- 
gether about five minutes to distinguish between the 
three short-leaved evergreens which look so much 
alike to a novice, the firs, the hemlocks, and the 
spruces. When once you know the spruces by the 
looks or the feel, you will begin to know the white 
from the red and black spruce by the colour. Every- 
thing about the white spruce is paler than the others. 
The foliage is light, almost pea-green, and the bark 
is not ruddy but grayish-brown . There are thousands 
of acres of spruce woods in our northern Central 
and New England states. Boys and girls on camping 
trips can sometimes collect spruce gum enough to 



82 OUTDOOR WORK 

pay expenses and have fun doing it. The only 
equipment necessary is a heavy pocket knife, a gum 
spud, a canvas sack, a strong hand, and a pair of 
sharp eyes. The eyes will get sharper as the knife 
gets dull and the tree you found nothing on in the 
morning of your first day may yield a good harvest 
on the return trip. You will not be able to buy a 
gum spud, but a tinsmith can make one for you at 
small cost, according to these directions: Solder a 
piece of galvanized iron into a funnel six inches deep, 
three inches across the top, and one inch in diameter 
at the bottom. A ferrule two or three inches deep 
and an inch in diameter is fitted into the bottom 
of the funnel and soldered in tight. Fit a long 
handle into this affair and your spud is ready. 
You may count on a good majority of the gum you 
find being out of reach of the knife but the spud 
gets it down very successfully. 

The best place to find spruce gum is undoubtedly 
in woods where no one has been "gummin"' before, 
at least not for five years or so. The most 
plentiful supply is said to be on slopes where 
the trees have a southern exposure, and the 
smaller trees yield more gum than the big ones. 
Your work is not done with collecting, for in order 
to get the best price you must present a fancy grade 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 83 

to the market. If your gum is all thrown in together, 
good, bad, and indifferent, your average price is 
pretty sure to be less than for a carefully cleaned 
and sorted lot. 

Spruce gum can be collected in summer or 
winter. Which time is better for you depends 
on circumstances. There is a peculiar charm 
about gum hunting on snow-shoes. A young 
man suffering from too little fresh air and attendant 
ills might find his health among the spruce trees 
while the gum paid the bills. 

MUSHROOMS 

"Are you sure these are good mushrooms?" I 
asked my seven-year-old daughter. 

"Yes. I'm sure. Don't you know Aunt J — 
says that all the Coprinoe are edible.^" 

This is a true story and it only goes to show that 
even a small child can learn that there are a small 
number of unmistakable mushrooms, which are 
edible and there is never any danger of being wrong 
about them. The puff-balls, for example, are all 
good to eat. When we found the neighbour's 
children kicking great white spongy puff-balls in 
the pasture we begged them to let us have them in- 
stead. "Pap says they're p'ison" was their reply, 



84 OUTDOOR WORK 

but we heeded them not for their "pap" was no 
oracle of ours. We were quite willing the children 
should go on thinking puff-balls were poison, if 
only they would not use them for foot-balls. No- 
body in his senses would try to eat puff-balls after 
they have begun to turn black or brown. But 
when they are white and tender they are very good. 
Skin the ball, slice thin, add water and a little salt, 
and stew for twenty minutes or so. Drain and dress 
with cream sauce. No doubt puff-ball slices broiled 
over a camp fire with bacon would be good. I wish I 
had tried it, but I never have. We will agree that no 
puff-ball can compare with the pink-gilled meadow 
mushroom, but we make no such claims for it. 

The best place to look for puff-balls is in old past- 
ures in late summer and early fall. The giants are 
sometimes as big as a milk pail. The pear-shaped 
ones grow on tree stumps and are as big as your fist or 
smaller. There is an endless variety of tiny ones 
of all sorts which are either too tough or too small to 
bother with. But no puff-ball is "p'ison," not one. 

Boys and girls who like to harvest nature's crops 
are missing a lot of fun besides many pecks of de- 
licious food by neglecting the common edible mush- 
rooms. If you know a few good ones you are 
perfectly safe. When you have seen them a few 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 85 

times and gathered them a few times and compared 
them with photographs you are ready to eat them. 
I should advise always to go mushroom hunting 
first with some experienced person. Personally I 
take no risks. For instance if my book tells me that 
"dangerous fungi resembling this species and some- 
times found in company with it — etc," that's 
enough. Say no more. I let that one alone. I 
do not like the company it keeps, and it may be a 
sheep in wolf's clothing. In my Hst of edible fungi, 
common in New York and New Jersey, there are 
less than a dozen kinds. No one of these looks 
enough like any other fungus to be mistaken for it. 
A few good looks at them will fix them in the memory. 
These are morels, meadow mushrooms, shaggy- 
manes, inky-caps, oyster mushroom, puff-balls, 
coral fungi, and chanterelles. The open season for 
morels is in early spring, when arbutus is blossoming, 
and later. Coral fungi and chanterelles are at 
their finest in mid-summer, puff-balls in September, 
inky-caps and shaggy-manes in October, and we ate 
oyster mushrooms on January first one year, though 
they appear earlier. The meadow mushroom with 
white flesh and pink gills is grown indoors and is 
seen in the market from fall till spring, but nature's 
crop must be harvested in fall before frost. 




86 OUTDOOR WORK 

Morels. — Morels look like nothing else. When 

full sized they are six inches high. The hollow stalk 

is as large as your finger and about half the length 

of the whole. The top or cap is brownish and so 

covered with ridges and wrinkles that 

it would never be mistaken for anything 

else in the world. You ought to see a 

picture of it because it is difficult to 

describe so irregular an object. Look it 

up in some mushroom book or bulletin in| 

your library. 

You never know just where morels may appear. 
We found them in our garden once. They come up 
right among the weeds or dead leaves. I have often 
found them along forest by-paths, especially in wet 
weather in spring. They are delectable. Perhaps 
you have eaten delicately broiled slices of tender- 
loin of young pig. Morels do not taste like this — ■ 
they look a little like it — they taste very much 
better. You taste them. 

Coral Fungi. — The coral fungi that I eat look 
like chunks of pinkish or cream white organ pipe 
coral. They are fleshy, soft, yet firm enough to 
keep their shape, and the whole mass is made up 
of tiny thread- or rod-like parts of many branches. 
There is a fine one which looks like a cauliflower 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 87 

though more yellow. I have found the pink and 
creamy ones on fallen and decayed tree trunks in 
deep, cool woods in midsummer. Others equally 
good grow in thin woods or open places. They 
vary in size from chunks as big as a walnut to 
those as big or bigger than your fist. They need 
careful cleansing under a faucet. Some cooks soak 
them first in cold water into which they put a 
little vinegar or lemon juice. They then fry 
in butter. Another way is to stew till tender 
in water with lemon juice in it. Then drain and 
dress with cream sauce. 

Puff-balls. — What country child has not puffed 
the "smoke" from the hole in the top of the tough- 
skinned little brown balls they find in the fields in 
autumn.'* Children generally believe them to be 
deadly poison and call them "devil's snuff-boxes.'* 
Their life history is very like that of other fungi. 
The most of the year these flowerless and leafless 
plants spend underground. They spread in a tangle of 
fine threads all through the soil wherever they find 
decaying vegetable matter upon which to feed. When 
their time comes, little white balls push out and up 
from the threads. These come to the surface and we 
know them by their shapes and sizes as our different 
kinds of puff-balls, mushrooms, or other fungi. 



88 OUTDOOR WORK 

The puff-balls are white and look like fine 
cream cheese when they first appear. Their busi- 
ness is to ripen their spores, scatter them, and dis- 
appear. The brown smoke or dust of the ripe puff- 
ball is blown about by the wind and finds its way 
into the earth in time; each tiny spore or grain of 
dust can start a new mat of threads down under- 
ground. When you puff the devil's snuff-box you 
are doing the plant just the kindness it was waiting 
for. When a cow steps on a ripe giant puff-ball 
a great smoke goes up, and the breeze catches the 
dust. Some of the spores may be carried on the 
wind or on the cow's foot to far distant pastures, 
there to settle down and start a new puff-ball colony. 
It is just so with all the fungi. 

All the puff-balls are edible but one of the most 
eatable is the giant, which is found in August or Sep- 
tember in pastures or other grassy places. When 
right to eat it is grayish on the outside and pure white 
clear through. In size this giant varies from six or 
eight inches through to two feet. Specimens of 
ten pounds' weight are not rare, and there is record 
of some twice that size. When yellow or brown 
inside, the giant is past eating. 

The pear-shaped puff-ball is the commonest one. 
This is a sort of dirty brown colour outside, pure 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 89 

white inside. It is found on old wood or on the 
ground as early as July and as late as October. In 
size the balls vary from thimble size to that of 
a big pear. They grow in companies, sometimes 
scores together. 

The brain puff-ball is larger than the pear-shaped. 
The top is wrinkled or corrugated, and grayish or 
reddish in colour. 

Chanterelles. — Chanterelles are found in late 
summer in the woods amongst moss where it is 
damp and cool. They are red or yellow and look 
as if you had put your thumb in the middle of the 
top and pushed it down so that the network of 
gills appear on the outside. The name means a 
little goblet, and the perfect ones are goblet-shaped. 
If you go camping in the woods in summer you are 
almost sure to find chanterelles. 

Meadow Mushrooms.— The wild meadow mush- 
room usually appears in large numbers after the 
autumn rains have renewed the pastures. They 
frequently come up alongside of an old dried patch 
of cow manure. To make myself familiar with this 
pink-gilled variety I visited a large market where 
they had them for sale in all stages, from the little 
round buttons to the big flat broilers which are 
turning brown. They are just right when the cap 



90 OUTDOOR WORK 

has spread so as to burst the delicate white veil 
which covers the gills. The flesh is white and the 
gills a delicate pink. The skin peels off easily like 
that of a ripe peach. Look them over with great 
care when preparing for the table. The early worm 
which is on hand to get a first bite of everything 
sometimes honeycombs the whole plant. The stems 
of young ones are tender at the top. 

Inky Caps. — You never expect to gather your 
dinner from an ash heap.'^ Neither did I; but in 
the edge of the woods nearest us the public used to 
be allowed to dump ashes. It is now overgrown 
with golden-rod, iron weed and various other coarse 
plants. A path leads through it. Last fall 
we discovered that the place was fairly swarming 
with Coprinus comatus, the shaggy mane mush- 
room. This does not look like anything else on 
land or sea and is delicious. Its relative, the inky 
cap is just as good to eat, but not so handsome. 
Both melt away into black ink as they grow old. 
They should be cooked as soon as possible after 
gathering. We kept some over night once. Such 
a sight ! They looked like black corn smut. 

The Coprinoe push up in such tight clumps some- 
times that their heads are all out of shape. They 
rise literally over night. Sometimes one comes up 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 91 

singly and grows tall and perfect, a truly lovely 
object, pure white, six inches tall, its shaggy head 
held high, its silver-white gills delicate as tissue 
paper. A few hours later you will see a ragged bit 
of pulp rapidly dissolving in a pool of black ink. 

Oyster Mushrooms. — The oyster mushroom comes 
out like the shelf fungi on decaying tree stumps 
or logs. They are ashy colour or dull white, solid 
and rather tough, and vary in breadth from two to 
five inches. As to why they are called oyster mush- 
rooms, opinions differ. The flavour is not oyster- 
like, though the flesh is about as tough as a boiled 
oyster. The shape does suggest an oyster shell; 
perhaps that is the best reason for the name. One 
edible relative of the oyster mushroom grows 
usually on decaying elm stumps as late in the year 
as November. 

The first thing to do if you get interested in mush- 
rooms is to get some good illustrated book on them. 
The chances are that your State Experiment Station 
has issued a bulletin on the subject. If not you 
can get those published by the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture or perhaps those issued 
by some neighbouring state. What you want is 
information on wild fungi, especially the edible ones, 
not directions about growing the market varieties. 



92 OUTDOOR WORK 

When you write for bulletins state just what you are 
looking for. Pictures, especially photographs, are 
of the greatest use in identifying specimens. Com- 
pare the descriptions and pictures with your 
mushrooms and do not use them if there is any 
question in your mind as to what they are. The 
books mentioned in the appendix of this book have 
been of help to me. 

CONSERVING NATURE's CROPS 

The harvesting of nature's crops is a most fas- 
cinating occupation. As boys and girls we do not 
ask why; we only know what fun it is. If the time 
ever comes when you wish to forget that you are 
grown up, nothing will help you like going into the 
woods, the fields, or the hedgerows to help the 
birds and the little fur-coated animals harvest the 
crops of nuts or berries or other fruit that grow in 
nature's orchards. With your sack of nuts or 
plums on your arm, or your pail full of berries, you 
can easily forget that you live in a flat or work in 
an office or a factory. 

Some people think when they see how much over- 
ripe fruit is falling to the ground, and how much more 
there is than can ever be gathered by human hands, 
that nature is wasteful. Perhaps this is why these 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 93 

same people and others who did not think at all, 
have been so very wasteful of our country's natural 
resources, and brought about such a really alarming 
state of things in our forests. Those who do stop 
to think will see that although she is lavish, nature 
is never wasteful. The berries must decay in order 
that the seeds may germinate, and in moulding 
they nourish the fungi which are just as important 
in nature's eyes, so to speak, as the berries are. 
Nothing is wasted in nature. On the contrary, 
everything is saved and is made over into some other 
form. Nothing stands still; transformation goes 
on continuously. What was soil yesterday is fruit 
to-day and is built into our muscles and nerves 
and brains to-morrow. 

Every boy or girl that helps to harvest nature's 
crops can do a little to assist in our great national 
work of preserving the country's natural resources. 
Would you ruin a fine young tree just beginning a 
life of usefulness? By mutilating it past recogni- 
tion, you may add a few nuts to your this year's 
store. But what an injustice you are doing to the 
next generation of boys and girls. You are robbing 
them. I have heard men say: *'When I was a boy 
we used to bring home arbutus by the wagon load 
from Coy Glen. But it's hard to find any there now. 



94 OUTDOOR WORK 

It must have winter-killed or blighted." My tongue 
burned to tell them that they themselves were the 
blight that winter-killed the arbutus and robbed me 
of my right to gather a few sprays. They had torn 
it up by the roots in their greed to fill their wagons, 
and then they cut out all the trees, and the sunlight 
destroyed all the shade-loving things. 

Boys and girls of a more enlightened generation 
know better ways and will not leave behind them 
a record of selfishness. 

THE STORY OF THE CREATION OF A NEW INDUSTRY 

I am glad to tell the methods by which I have 
developed a good business in collecting and growing 
California bulbs, as I believe my success can be 
duplicated in other parts of the country — in fact, 
one man already makes a good living by exploiting 
the wild flowers of the Rocky Mountains, several 
people are exporting the cacti of our desert, and 
there are several nurseries in the southern Appala- 
chians for the interesting plants of North Carolina. 

In 1870, when I was nine years old, my family 
moved to Ukiah Valley in north-western California, 
and there I have lived ever since. My early home 
was a farm, and my first work to raise hops and a 
mortgage. My education was such as the district 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 95 

school and an abundance of good reading could 
give me. At eighteen I began to teach school. 
I was always a lover of nature and fond of wandering 
about the hills. In Mendocino County in 1870 
the country was just emerging from the cowboy era, 
and little attention was paid to vegetable gardening, 
while flower gardens were all but unknown. 

HOW THE LIFE WORK WAS DETERMINED 

There was one notable exception to the indiffer- 
ence to flowers. Alexander MacNab, a Scotchman 
who had been forced by declining health to leave 
Glasgow, had found new vigour in California's moun- 
tains. The property which he had purchased for 
a stock range is one of the most picturesque in 
northern California, and there he built a modest 
but ideal home. He sent everywhere for flowers, 
and I know of no place in these later days where more 
flowers are well grown. He gave to his flowers not 
only money, but love and himself, and few gardeners 
were more successful. I often visited there in my 
boyhood days and the inspiration that I received 
from this place and from another source determined 
my life work. 

I had a sister a few years older than myself 
who had been in the East for some years and whose 



96 OUTDOOR WORK 

failing health forced her to return to California. 
She was a flower-lover and soon called upon me to 
begin a garden on the bare hill where our very 
plain home stood. It was a work of love, for all 
of the new soil was carried in buckets, and the water 
which our hot climate made necessary was carried 
from a well, but it was a great success. My Scotch 
friend was most liberal with both plants and instruc- 
tion, and between the two my bent was well fixed. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRY 

It was through Mr. MacNab that I got started 
in the collection of native plants. Woolson and 
Company, then of Passaic, N. J., were the first 
American firm to take up the culture of our native 
American plants as a specialty. They wrote to 
Mr. MacNab, asking him to secure the native 
plants and offering to pay for them in eastern grown 
plants. My love for flowers had interested me in 
botany, and it was quite natural that the letter 
should be turned over to me. In my first letter to 
Woolson I sent a pressed flower of Colochortus 
pulchellus and received in return an order for one 
hundred bulbs, which they said they would pay for 
in cash. This order was filled and it was the begin- 
ning of my bulb business. 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 97 

My first idea was to earn money to buy plants 
with, but before long I saw that a small business 
might be built up. 

My progress as a collector went hand in hand 
with my education in botany. My method was 
this: First to find something of sufficient beauty 
to make it probable that it would be wanted; next, 
to find its name, and then to offer it to some one of 
the very few firms then interested in such things. 

Such was the first stage in the development of 
a new industry, but the latter was no less impor- 
tant, for it involved knowing the plant at every 
stage of its growth, finding when it could best be 
handled, and how best packed for shipment. Al- 
most from the beginning I tried to grow the native 
plants, and botanical study, collection, and culti- 
vation have gone hand in hand since. 

METHODS OF COLLECTING 

Every year I took longer trips. I went alone, 
with the lightest of camping outfits, slept on the 
ground, and penetrated the wildest regions, learn- 
ing where the desirable flowers grew, and collect- 
ing those in demand, at the same time studying 
the general flora. When I had learned the flora 
of a region, I tried to train some resident as a 



98 OUTDOOR WORK 

permanent collector, for not all of these long trips 
could be made every year. My horizon fast widened, 
and through friends, by letters to others, and often 
by the migration of men whom I had trained, new 
fields were opened, and later I had men who had been 
trained under me to send to distant points. 

Before I began to collect, others had been in the 
field, but they were principally wandering botanists 
who seldom collected over the same ground for two 
years in sequence. Their collections were of stuff 
of all grades, often made at the wrong season, 
and there was no demand except from a few special 
lists. At first I shared their faults, but after a few 
years I saw the necessity of making a reputation 
for reliability, for thoroughly learning the art of 
packing, and for such grading as would insure 
uniform quality. 

ESTABLISHING A NURSERY BUSINESS 

As time went on, collection became less impor- 
tant and culture the central feature of my work. 

My first garden was at the farm home; later I 
spent much time and money in experiments in a 
reclaimed lake bed near Ukiah, still later at my 
Ukiah home, and since 1897 in the mountains about 
eight miles east of Ukiah. Each experiment had 



HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS 99 

its value. No one had grown Californian bulbs 
in California, and everything had to be learned 
experimentally. I now have two nurseries. One 
of them is at Lyons Valley, a lovely spot in the 
highest part of that branch of the Coast Range 
which 1 found six years ago was specially adapted 
to lily culture. About three quarters of a mile 
away, at *'The Terraces," nature has provided 
endless variations of soil, climate, moisture, sun, 
and shade. Here I grow a great variety of bulbs. 
In 1886 I sold about seven thousand plants of 
all sorts; in 1888, two hundred and fifty thousand, 
and the difference was on business principles. 

Carl Purdy 



Ill 

RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 
RAISING COLTS 

EVERY farm boy I ever knew was ambi- 
tious to own horses. Before my eldest 
brother was twelve he had traded pigs 
with our father for calves, then heifers for a horse, 
and his favourite air castles were great luxurious 
barns inhabited by blooded horses of his own 
raising. 

If your colt's mother is dutiful, and they mostly 
are, the youngster will have plenty to eat for the 
first few weeks. Petting is a good thing for little 
colts; never a cuff nor a harsh word. Their con- 
fidence won, their education is begun. While still 
dependent on the mother for milk the young colt 
begins to nibble hay from the manger, and gets 
a taste of the oats in the feed box, too, and finds 
them good. Oats and clover hay, a little bran 
and shorts, a run in the pasture every fine day 

100 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 101 

all winter, will usually keep the colt growing and 
healthy. A warm stable with plenty of dry bed- 
ding, preferably in a stall with another colt, is 
necessary at night. 

Colts need a plentiful supply of cool, clean water 
in summer, but in winter, water should be heated 
just enough to take off the chill. It is bad for a 
colt to drink at meal-time. (That sounds like a 
rule for boys and girls.) A chunk of rock salt 
handy for colts to lick at helps keep the appetite 
normal. 

An ordinary farm colt at three or four months 
old is worth only thirty or forty dollars. Two 
years later, with the right kind of care and teach- 
ing, the same colt will bring four times that price. 
What other farm crop will do as much.^* 

The mother of a baby colt once died on our 
farm. My father felt very badly over it; losing 
the old mare was misfortune enough, but the colt 
was a noble-looking little fellow, highly bred. We 
girls had been foster-mothers to almost everything; 
cats, pups, and pigs were easy, and calves. But 
what of a colt.^ "Let's try if we can't raise him 
on the bottle," said our mother. The experiments 
we tried with that colt were many. We gave 
him "half and half" at first — a cup full of milk 



102 OUTDOOR WORK 

to one of water. Our small cousin had once been 
fed on mare's milk, much to our disgust, but it 
gave us ideas for our colt. Mother read some- 
where that cow's milk was not so sweet, but was 
richer than mare's milk. So we patched our bits 
of hearsay together and made up our colt's ration 
about like this: 

First week: half sweet milk, half water, a tea- 
spoonful of sugar to each pint, ten times a day — 
always warm — last feeding at ten p. m. — not 
very much at a time. Second and third weeks 
less water, six feedings a day, warm and sweet 
as before. Fourth to tenth week: increase quan- 
tity gradually, give warm — not very rich — milk 
three times a day. We gave him a bottle at first 
with a nipple made of a goose-quill wrapped each 
time with clean, soft rags. Everything about his 
food had to be kept sweet. We scalded the bottle 
and the quill and washed them in water and bak- 
ing soda, just as mother said. Then we taught 
him to drink from a pail. He followed us about 
like a dog and was very playful and frisky. We 
fed him a little hay and oats and grass when he 
was old enough. My little sister wanted us to 
give him less milk so that he would grow up into 
a pony, but when he begged for food, she was the 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 103 

first to go for his bottle. He grew up and developed 
just like any horse and father said he was the 
easiest two-year-old he ever had to teach to work. 
He paid us seventy-five dollars for the colt when 
he was eight months old and ready to shift for 
himself with the other colts. 

HAISING SHEEP 

Every boy on the farm ought to have his own 
particular hobby in the line of stock. It is far 
easier to keep account of your own if they are 
entirely different from the animals raised by the 
other members of the family. An account should 
be kept with the animals, to learn whether they 
pay or not. It is only by this business-like method 
that the young farmer, or the older one for that 
matter, can know whether his animals are visit- 
ors or boarders. 

If the mother keeps poultry, the boys pigs, and 
the father raises horses and cows, then why should 
not the girls raise sheep .^^ There is room on every 
fair -sized farm for a flock. There is nothing about 
the care of sheep that a strong, healthy girl may 
not do if she is not needed to help with housework. 
Her father will teach and advise her. Tending 
sheep is far more healthful occupation and more 



104 OUTDOOR WORK 

remunerative than embroidering sofa pillows or 
knitting "fancy work." 

Whoever undertakes the sheep raising must know 
first some of the needs of his favourites. They are 
grazers. They will glean a good living in stubble 
fields and crop grass in pastures where cows would 
starve; they will bite the weeds in the fence corners 
down to the quick nor leave one stalk to blossom or 
set seed. They are among the best and cheapest 
of lawn-mowers, enriching the ground they feed 
over. They are easy to care for, as they can take 
care of themselves most of the year. What a joy 
it is to take a quiet walk over the hills of a Sunday 
morning to salt the sheep! They are trustful, 
playful, docile creatures, and their presence unde- 
niably adds to the picture of content and comfort 
that every homestead should present. 

While it is true that sheep will keep fat on good 
pasture with plenty of water and a semi-weekly 
supply of salt, it is not to be supposed that they 
can pick up a living the whole year round in a cold 
climate. They do not need stuffing in cold weather, 
but they do need plenty of good hay in early winter 
and nourishing food like bran, oats, barley, and clover 
hay toward spring. ' Alfalfa is ideal, but many 
people succeed with sheep who fail on alfalfa. Sheep 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 105 

will over-feed if not restrained. They should have 
exercise and fresh air in plenty all winter. They 
should go out every day to pasture, except during 
storms, until snow covers the ground. 

Ewes fed but not over-fed over winter and shel- 
tered under some kind of rain-proof roof will be 
strong and healthy mothers. A new-born lamb 
is about as weak and wobbly and inefficient as a 
human baby. The weakest ones seem bent on 
dying, but a little coddling and care will put them 
on their feet. They should be taught how to take 
nourishment and whoever takes this in hand should 
use patience and insist that the lesson be learned. 
I have known of many a good shepherd who sat 
up late and got up early and visited the sheep at 
midnight in lambing time and so saved all his 
lambs. There is something so appealing about a 
lamb that no owner would like to remember 
that he slept comfortably through a stormy night 
while a new-born lamb starved in the presence 
of plenty or was chilled past help while its 
mother could only bleat helplessly for the slothful 
shepherd. 

Lambs should not follow their mothers to pasture 
until the grass is grown enough to be really long and 
nourishing. They should be out in the barnyard 



106 OUTDOOR WORK 

on warm, sunny days, and not weaned until near 
six months old. After August they will fatten on 
clover pasture and be ready for market before 
Christmas. 

Sheep are sheared in spring, about April first, 
but this depends on the climate. Most farm crops 
are fall or winter afiPairs. Like maple sirup, wool 
is a spring cash crop, which is a great convenience. 
An eight-pound fleece is worth nearly half 
as much as the sheep it grew on, and the lambs 
will soon be worth as much as their mothers. 
So we have a double chance to make good in 
sheep raising. 

Sheep are so hardy, so harmless, and so easily 
managed that the only wonder is that any farm is 
without a flock. Men who know say that the farm 
dog is to blame for this. How about the farm dog, 
boys and girls? Honestly, now, is your dog worth his 
keep? No matter how much better he is than the 
neighbours' dog. How about your dog? You like 
him, of course, but is he a loafing, worthless, sneak- 
ing, sheep-killing dog? Look between his teeth 
before you deny that he is a sheep-killer. Are 
you a good citizen if you let such a dog run at 
large? If you raise sheep you will need a dog, 
and remember that a good collie will protect your 



i^ttUmJ^^^^^m 


^^^> V^ 




f "^ 




1 




1 



so 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 107 

sheep from all the roving, bloodthirsty dogs in the 
neighbourhood. 

RAISING GOATS 

Boys, are you really serious about making some 
money? Do you live on a farm where the hills 
are too steep to plow and the only crop that amounts 
to anything is the crop of stones? Are those steep 
hills covered with brush and good-for-nothing 
trees that look too hopeless? Don't grind your 
teeth and say "There's no chance here. I'm 
going to buy a ticket for the city." Glance at the 
heading on this page and don't smile derisively 
nor turn on to some new chapter. 

"Goats! Humph!" 

If you never heard of anybody making anything 
out of goats, here's your chance to hear something 
new. People can and do make money out of goats 
and so can you. Why, it is too easy ! 

Here, read these facts about goats: 

Goats "prefer rough, rocky, wild, and hilly land. 

Goats always thrive if allowed considerable range. 

Hilly, hushy land is best for goats. 

The feed of one cow will keep twelve goats. 

Temperature need not be considered. Goats 
thrive where temperatures are extreme. 



108 OUTDOOR WORK 

The Angora goat fleece is cut annually and is 
very valuable. We import over one million pounds 
a year. Skins of common goats are in great demand 
for leather. We imported sixteen million dollars' 
worth in 1898 and more every year since. 

Goat manure is as valuable as that of sheep. 

Angora venison cannot be told from lamb. 

Goats scorn to eat fresh grass if coarse weeds 
like wild carrot, mullein, dock, etc., are in sight. 

Every 'part of a goat is salable. Fleece, milk, 
cheese, skin, flesh, tallow, bones, hoofs, horns, and 
manure. 

Goats improve land. They are ''lifelong scaven- 
gers," and can put land covered with useless under- 
brush into shape for pasture more cheaply and more 
quickly than dynamite. 

A herd of common goats can be built up in a few 
years. They breed at one year and usually have 
twins. 

Goats are hardy; less subject to disease than sheep. 

A good goat is a money-maker. 

These statements are quoted directly from the 
writings of men and women of experience. They 
have no goats to sell, so you can take their word. 

The requirements for successful goat raising are 
few and easy to provide. They are these: 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 109 

(1) Space. — Goats do not take kindly to herd- 
ing nor to small fields. If they have only a small 
enclosure they are likely spend more time trying 
to get at what is outside than in browsing. To 
meet a wire fence every few steps makes a goat 
restive. 

(2) Housing. — Goats must be kept dry over- 
head and under foot. The shelter for goats 
should be high and dry. They will not thrive 
in wet, marshy land, nor keep well if their shed 
is muddy. They dislike filth and will not 
stand in it nor touch soiled food. They prefer 
to sleep on the roof of the barn, you know, 
but if a clean, dry bedlin an airy place is provided 
they will not roost so high. 

(3) Water. — Plenty of clean fresh water should 
always be available. 

If you can supply these three essentials, you are 
ready to raise goats. 

There are two well-marked lines of business in 
goat raising. Which shall you follow? 

Angoras are raised for their fleece; common goats 
either for leather or for milk. Angoras are not 
much good for milk and their skins are not so fine 
nor durable as those of common goats. The An- 
gora is free from the offensive odour of common 



110 OUTDOOR WORK 

male goats. The greatest demand for goat products 
in our markets to-day is for Angora fleece and for com- 
mon goat skins. The other products, Hke flesh, hoof, 
bones and horns, tallow, cheese, milk, and manure, 
can easily be marketed and should pay most of the ex- 
penses. The main products should be clear profit. 

BUILDING UP A HERD 

There is a slow way and a quick way to build 
up a herd of goats. As usual the slow way requires 
less capital. If you have but a few dollars you will 
have to begin with cheap goats, but to keep a poor 
goat is poor business. You can buy good, common 
goats for one dollar and a half or two dollars each 
and with time and patience build up from them a 
herd of Angoras by crossing. If capital is easier to 
command than years of time, you will begin with 
good Angora does which cost from eight dollars 
upward. If you begin with common ones, choose 
white, short-haired individuals. Keep only the 
best does in your herd for breeders; you will 
soon learn how to judge them by the quality of their 
fleece and the price it brings you per pound. In 
five or six years it is possible to build up a herd of 
fine mohair producers from common goats. 

The hair grows coarser as the goat passes six 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 111 

years of age, so it does not pay to keep one too long. 
Buy young does. A goat's teeth tell its age up to, the 
fourth year. If all the eight teeth are full-sized the 
goat is certainly four to five years old, it may be more. 

CARE OF KIDS 

A young kid is not a very sturdy youngster. 
Good care should be given both doe and kid at this 
time. A warm shelter should be provided. May 
is the best month for kids to come, in the North. 
Extra feeding should be given the doe and plenty 
of water. If possible each doe with her kid should 
have a separate stall or pen so that the doe will 
know her own young one. If you can arrange 
that each pen in the kid stable can have an out- 
door entrance the mother can come and go at will. 
A board a foot to eighteen inches high across this 
entrance will keep the kid from following his mother. 
When about six weeks old the kid will jump this 
board. By this token you will know that he is 
strong enough to jump about over the stones 
wherever his mother leads him. 

FOOD OF GOATS 

The comic papers may be right about some things, 
but they are wrong about goats. A diet of news- 



112 OUTDOOR WORK 

papers and tin cans will not keep a goat healthy 
nor produce a salable fleece of fine mohair. An- 
goras like common goats are browsers, not grazers 
like sheep. They eat coarse vegetation such as weedy 
growths and the twigs and leaves of underbrush, 
rather than grass. Besides this, particularly in 
winter, they should have other food. Leaves, 
table scraps like potato and fruit parings, turnips 
and other roots, and cabbage are all acceptable 
if clean. Parings and roots should be washed; 
if you expect goats to eat swill you deserve to be 
disappointed. Dirty carrots, rotten apples, sour 
or mouldy refuse do not tempt a self-respecting 
pig; much less an Angora. Oats in the sheaf are 
very good fodder for them. Grain is not required 
if clover hay, alfalfa, or cowpea stubble is 
plentiful. Too much grain makes a lazy goat 
and a lazy goat will not produce a handsome 
fleece. Bran may be fed for a change, and 
a little cotton seed or corn may be given, but 
sparingly. Leaves or other coarse food should 
be given plentifully at night, as Angoras rel- 
ish a midnight lunch beside their three square 
meals a day. 

A supply of rock salt should be kept where goats 
can get it whenever they want it. If it is given 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 113 

only at long intervals they may over-indulge. 
Water should be warmed slightly in winter if 
practicable. 

SHELTER AND ENCLOSURE 

Hardy as they are, goats cannot stand exposure 
to storms. They abhor wet. Cold rain or sleet 
storms are really dangerous to their health. Goats 
will go the long way round every time rather than 
get into mud. Mud is very bad for the fleece, 
too. Buyers refuse to pay for dirt. 

Goat shelters should be dry, but they need not 
be tight except overhead. In fact many goats 
die of suffocation when huddled in close quarters. 
If the roof is just high enough from the floor for 
goats to go under, it can be open all round except 
perhaps on the side where the prevailing wind and 
storms would beat in. 

No other animals should be quartered with 
goats. Experience shows this. 

Goats prefer hard beds. Chaff or straw enough 
to absorb the liquid manure is all that should be 
put on the floor. Trees are the best shade from the 
hot sun, but if none are growing in the goats' pasture 
other shelter should be provided. 

It is true that goats thrive best when unconfined. 



114 OUTDOOR WORK 

But this does not mean that your goats should be 
allowed to range on other people's domains. They 
are a very real nuisance in orchards and gardens, 
and if your place is small it is no place for goats. 
A fence need not be very high to restrain a flock of 
goats. They are climbers and once in a while there 
is one who would take a prize for the "high jump." 
Ordinarily a fence three and a half feet high is all 
that is necessary. Boards, rails, or wire will make 
a good goat fence. It should go close to the ground 
to prevent crawling under. If wire is used, take 
care that the mesh is too small for a goat's head. 
You must take your market's demands into con- 
sideration when deciding whether to breed Angoras 
or common goats. An Angora fleece weighs from 
four to eight pounds. This can be cut every year 
for ten or twelve years. The common goat's skin is 
valuable, but he has only one! This makes the 
Angora look like the best business proposition, al- 
though requiring more capital to start, as the care 
required is about the same and the value of by- 
products practically equal. 

THE COMMON GOAT 

Two arguments may be brought forward in 
favour of the common goat. In the first place, the 




Photograph by Helen W. Cooke 



Feeding the Goats 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 115 

herd increases much faster as the Angora doe 
usually has only one kid, while twins are the rule 
with common goats. There is a decidedly growing 
demand for goats' milk near large cities, especially 
for hospitals. We all know how commonly goats' 
milk is used in foreign countries. We Americans 
have a rather silly prejudice against it, but we will 
get over this when we realize how often goats' milk 
saves the lives of babies and invalids. The follow- 
ing statements are vouched for by physicians and 
others of experience: 

Goats' milk is more easily digested than cows' 
milk. 

Analysis shows goats' milk has a marked simi- 
larity to human mothers' milk and is more readily 
assimilated by infants. 

Goats' milk is generally claimed to be free at all 
times from germs of tuberculosis. 

Cannot be told from cow's milk by taste. 

Excellent for coffee and in cooking. 

The goat is claimed by its friends to be greatly 
the superior of the cow for milk, for the following 
reasons : 

The goat is naturally cleanly. 

The goat is easy to keep clean because of her small 
size. Goats can be and are put into tubs and scrubbed 



116 OUTDOOR WORK 

and sterilized when being used as foster-mothers in 
baby hospitals. But no such treatment is possible 
with a cow. 

A goat can easily be taken from place to place 
with a family. A cow could not be transported 
without great expense. 

Goats eat far less than cows. Eight milch goats 
can be kept on the food of one milch cow. The same 
quality of food should be furnished. 

I believe there is a great future in America for 
the milch goat. 

TWENTY ACRES REDEEMED: THE STORY OF A SATIS- 
FACTORY EXPERIMENT WITH GOATS 
IN NEW ENGLAND 

In January, 1902, I bought seventy-five Angoras, 
as I had about twenty acres of brush land that 
I wanted to reclaim. I kept the goats in sheds until 
May. I had to put up a wire fence to keep them 
from visiting my neighbours, and in early May 
turned them into the first section, about one half 
of the piece. I built a shed for them to stay in nights 
and during rains. 

The work they did was marvellous. In less 
than a month this section had the appearance of 
having been struck by a cyclone, and it was evi- 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 117 

dent that the goats would soon require more terri- 
tory. Consequently I wired the other section of 
this twenty-acre piece, and when finished allowed 
them the range of the other piece, to which they 
marched in military precision daily, returning to 
the shed at night or during the approach of rain, 
which they seemed to foretell as accurately as a 
barometer. It was not long before it developed 
that they would require fresher fields or I must 
reduce my flock, as this ground was all that I had 
of that kind. Consequently I sold all but twenty- 
five, retaining twelve registered does, twelve kids, 
and one buck. For the does I paid ten dollars each, 
and my buck, which was a kid, cost twenty -five dol- 
lars. I had some grades that I sold at eight dollars 
and eight dollars and twenty-five cents each, and 
also some wether kids that I sold at five dollars each. 
I have this same flock now, with the addition of 
ten kids born this spring from these twelve does, 
which had twelve kids, two having died, leaving 
thirty-five now in the field. 

During the past winter I have handled more 
than six hundred that were sent here from the 
West. The test that I was anxiously watching for 
at the advent of spring was to see the effect of their 
work done last season, and I must say I am very 



118 OUTDOOR WORK 

agreeably surprised. In the first lot fenced there 
is scarcely a brush left, no briers, and not even 
Canada thistles. The entire field between the rocks 
came out this spring with beautiful, thick, green, 
grassy foliage, mostly white clover. On the other 
lot, part of the brush tried hard to show its tenacity 
of life by coming out with green leaves, but at this 
writing the shrubs have fallen prey to the devouring 
Angora, and green grass is coming out in about all 
the ground that they have trod. This alone to me 
is a satisfactory commercial experience. 

W. O. Corning 

RAISING CALVES 

Feeding the calves is always the boy's job or the 
girl's. Usually the milk is prepared by their mother, 
but the responsibility for the calves' welfare is left 
to the youngsters. If you look upon calf feeding as 
nothing but a chore to get over with as soon as 
possible, you get very little fun out of it. But if 
you see in those calves the beginning of your own 
fortune or the foundation of your college fund they 
look different. Whether the calves are yours or 
your father's, they are living creatures, capable of 
appreciating proper care and repaying it. They 
are just as capable of showing neglect. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 119 

If you are going to feed the calves, make a study of 
calf nature, know what kind of animals you want 
to make of them, find out how to accomplish your 
purpose, and then keep a straight course. Find 
out first the parentage of the calf. Then inquire 
if it is to be a beef animal or a dairy cow. Knowing 
its past and its future you can provide wisely for 
the present. 

A new-born calf should stay with the mother 
from twelve to twenty-four hours. The fluid she 
gives first is not milk, but is just what the calf needs 
to prepare its digestive organs for milk. If left 
longer with the mother it will be more bother to 
train. The calf should be fed sweet, whole milk 
for two weeks. If put immediately onto a diet of 
skim-milk, indigestion is likely to result, and the calf 
gets a setback from which it may never recover. 

When a young calf is taken from its mother, it 
knows nothing about drinking. The best practice 
is to let it fast for from twelve to twenty -four hours 
till it gets good and hungry. It is then in a state 
of mind to learn anything rather than go without 
any longer. [They treat human babies the same 
way if need be.] If started right, a young calf 
learns to drink in a day or two. Holding the pail 
with one to two quarts of warm, fresh, whole milk 



120 OUTDOOR WORK 

in your left hand, stand beside the calf and put your 
right hand over its nose. Insert two fingers into 
its mouth. Did you ever feel anything so funny? 
The calf will suck your fingers hungrily. Gently 
push its nose down into the warm milk with your 
fingers still in its mouth. After a while gently 
pull out one finger. If he misses it put it back and 
later try again. In a few lessons the calf will 
drink readily. Patience and kindness must be 
exercised if one little scamp proves dull. A calf 
that gets a slap for not drinking will come to think 
that the two disagreeable things always come 
together and his education and his growth will be 
delayed. 

For the first ten to twelve days the calf should 
have about five quarts of milk a day, divided into 
three feedings. This should be warmed to blood 
heat, ninety-five to a hundred degrees Fahr. At 
two weeks you can begin to substitute skim milk. A 
half -pint a day at first is about right. Watch the 
effect on the calf. Increase the quantity gradually, 
until at a month or six weeks old the calf is get- 
ting seven to eight quarts per day of skim-milk, 
always warm and perfectly sweet. 

The worst disease of calf-hood is scours, and this 
disease is caused by feeding cold, unclean, or sour 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 121 

milk. I'd be ashamed to have a calf of mine sick 
with the scours ! To cure it, add lime-water to the 
milk or mix a teaspoonful of dried blood in a small 
amount of water, then stir into the milk. Or an 
ounce of wheat bran or kaffir corn meal stirred into 
the milk will be helpful. Some recommend oat 
or corn meal fed dry, or a little linseed meal mixed 
in a little water and then stirred into the milk. 

If your calves are all heifers to be added to the 
dairy herd, you do not want them to lay on great 
amounts of fat, but to grow strong and be able to 
digest great amounts of hay. If they are to be beef, 
they need more fat. Grain is fattening, especially 
corn. Begin to feed hay as soon as the calf will 
take it. Clean, dry clover is best, but any good hay 
will help prepare their stomachs for the work which 
is expected of them later. Milk and hay are best 
for growing calves. Grain, oil-meal, and pasture 
furnish variety. 

Have you seen a wild-eyed cow being literally 
dragged behind a wagon, scared past endurance and 
behaving like a savage creature? There is not the 
slightest excuse for that sort of thing. What fun 
it is to slip a halter on a calf to-day and let him get 
accustomed to it; to-morrow lead him about a 
little with coaxing. In a few days he will lead like 



122 OUTDOOR WORK 

an old horse. He will learn to expect only kindness 
from his feeder and trainer. It would be well to 
accustom the calves to the presence of your dog, 
too. There are men who think a frightened animal 
is a humourous sight. But such a man is *'no 
gentleman" and I certainly would never think of 
trusting him to drive my horses, or milk my cows, or 
even feed my pigs. 

Our calves were kept in an old orchard, convenient 
to the house, with good pasture, plenty of sun and 
shade, and a suitable fence. A shed for wet weather 
is essential, for a clean, dry bed must be provided. 
Calves have no way of cleaning themselves, there- 
fore they must not be allowed to get dirty. 

Milk should be fed until the calves are four 
months old, and may be continued longer. After 
the first few weeks, when they have begun to take 
some hay and grass, the milk may be given in two 
feedings. Water should be given freely especially 
in hot weather. If your pasture has a clear running 
brook, your calves are in luck and so are you, for 
carrying water for a bunch of calves is no joke. 
A garden hose or a series of v-shaped troughs from 
pump to pen saves a lot of time and backache. 

A calf whose mother has a record for milk rich 
in butter fat and a sire of good family has in it the 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 123 

possibilities of a prize-winner. Whether she will 
earn seventy-seven cents a year over and above her 
keep , like those one thousand and twenty poor cows 
that Illinois boys and girls know about, or thirty dol- 
lars a year, like the twenty -five good cows, depends 
very much on the care she gets. No amount of care 
given to a cow will make up for neglect to the calf. 
There's a big responsibility on the boys and girls 
of the farms, for calf feeding is their job. 

THE STORY OF TWO BOYS AND A COW 

The suggestion that the suburban home might 
be a money-making investment would strike the 
average suburbanite as ridiculous. But a few mo- 
ments of careful calculation may put preconceived 
notions to flight and show how considerable money 
may be made — or saved, which is quite as impor- 
tant. 

Some years ago a family, which included two 
boys of eleven and thirteen years, took a house in 
the outskirts of a good-sized town, about thirty 
minutes' ride from the city. The father was a 
buyer for an importing house, and absent from home 
for several months of each year. His salary was 
large, as such salaries go, but there were seven 
children to be raised and educated, several of them 



124 OUTDOOR WORK 

with marked abilities that needed the very best 
possible instruction to bring them to their highest 
development. 

The boys spent one summer vacation at the coun- 
try house of an old friend of the family and got 
ideas. They talked them over, went back to their 
friend for counsel, then turned their batteries on 
their parents to gain their consent to an important 
new enterprise. 

Attached to the house was about an acre of 
ground, three fourths of which was old pasture 
grown to weeds and a tangle of brier bushes. 

By promising to work for a farmer during the 
coming vacation the boys arranged to have the 
field, which they cleared and made ready, ploughed, 
harrowed, and marked in the most thorough fashion. 

They planted it with the best variety of mid-sea- 
son sweet corn. The farmer cultivated it, and the 
boys hoed it and kept it in almost perfect condition. 

The season was very dry, but they laid a hose 
so as to start a stream of water into the lines between 
the rows of corn; then with a good pump they filled 
the trenches they had dug and completely irrigated 
the entire field. 

The crop was a great success. The boys picked 
and sold at retail prices to private customers 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 125 

twelve hundred dozen ears of the finest corn raised 
in that section. As it averaged twenty cents a 
dozen, it footed up the very comfortable sum of 
two hundred and forty dollars with small ears and 
left-overs quite sufficient for the use of the family. 

Two weeks from the first picking the stalks were 
cut and set up to cure for the cow that was really 
the object of their endeavour. 

The friend of the family selected the cow. She 
was a fine, fresh, young Jersey and Alderney cross 
— a high-grade animal, good for quality as well 
as quantity of milk and cream. 

There was small, well-built barn on the place, 
and here the cow was stabled. Cleanliness was 
the first, last, and intermediate law in and about 
the place. The boys had clothes expressly for 
barn wear and white aprons with long sleeves to 
put on when milking. 

Such unusual attention to details attracted cus- 
tomers until the demand went far ahead of the 
supply. 

For the first six months the cow gave, on an aver- 
age, sixteen quarts a day, fourteen of which were 
sold to persons who came for it, thereby saving 
all trouble and cost of delivery. Two quarts were 
kept for the family. 



126 OUTDOOR WORK 

For the next four months the sales were twelve 
quarts a day. Feed for the cow cost one dollar 
a week, besides hay and corn-stalks. 

The cow was bought late in July, and by the 
first of August the milk trade was well established. 
After ten months' experience the boys made up a 
statement to show to their father when he returned 
from a trip to Europe. 

CREDIT 

1,200 doz. corn at 20 cts. a doz $240.00 

Stalks 20.00 

Milk, 184 days, 14 qts. at 8 cts. a qt 206.08 

" 120 " 12 " " " " " 115.20 

$581.28 

DEBIT 

1 COW, $60.00; 1 ton hay, $18.00; feed, $40.00 . . . $118.00 

Profit, cash on hand $463.28 

Value of 1 cow 60.00 

Total assets $523.28 

Nelson S. Stone 
raising pigs 

When I was nine years old I laid the foundation 
of my college fund. My grandmother had a 
flock of twenty or thirty geese which were kept for 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 127 

the pillows and feather beds they filled. Great was 
my delight when grandma told me that she would give 
me a pig if I w ould help her pick the geese. Helping 
her would have been reward enough, for I was a 
great grandma girl, but the ambition of my child- 
hood was to own a pig. Did not my elder brother 
now own a beautiful mare and colt, and had he not 
started with a pig? 

Wednesday was the day set for plucking the geese 
and all my leisure on Monday and Tuesday was 
spent in building a pen. Plenty of material from 
which to construct this edifice was found about 
the place. I wisely located it at the back of the 
henhouse which left me only three sides to build. 
One corner was roofed with the best boards I could 
find, for I didn't wish my precious pig to suffer 
from sunstroke or have his bed transformed into a 
mud-hole when it rained. 

When the geese were picked to the last feather 
they could spare, I went with grandmother to select 
my pig from the litter of sucklings now ready to 
begin taking their food from the trough. She 
generously allowed me my choice, and if I did not 
get the pick of the bunch it was not her fault. I 
wonder how a girl of nine succeeded in transporting 
a lusty pig the three quarters of a mile between 



128 OUTDOOR WORK 

grandmother's house and ours. I should not like 
to undertake it now, but my confidence in my 
ability to do what I wanted done in those days was 
unlimited. A piece of rope, a stout cudgel, a pair 
of strong, young arms, and a high disregard of ap- 
pearances sustained me. I got my treasure home 
and into his pen — no mean triumph even as viewed 
by my elder brother who had passed by the pig 
stage and even the calf stage and entered into the 
exalted realm of horse ownership. 

My father was not the "your shoat, my hog" 
kind of a father. There came a time when he used 
to say that the girls owned all the cattle and the boys 
all the horses on the farm. When my pig grew up, 
I traded it to my father for a fine calf. This calf 
was the nucleus of my *'herd," for I never owned 
a horse. All through my college course when I 
needed money, I used to write to father to sell 
"Rowena" or "Corinne" or "Natty Bumpo." (We 
named our calves after the people we read about.) 
There was always a buyer ready at hand and the 
price paid was strictly in accord with the market 
quotations. The cow which bought my graduation 
cap and gown was the last of her race, "Betsy Bob- 
bett," one of the great-great-granddaughters of the 
calf for which I traded that original pig. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 129 

No one can deny or doubt that there is profit 
in pig raising. Pork "on the hoof" is ten cents a 
pound even as I write these words, with prospects 
good for going higher. A profit of one hundred per 
cent, is recorded by growers when the price is only 
six cents a pound. 

With the one exception of poultry, hogs bring 
the quickest returns for investment of any live stock. 
It is poor economy to keep any animal which can- 
not pay its board, except for sentiment, and few 
people keep pigs on that account. If I were be- 
ginning again I should not trade my pig for a calf 
but should raise pigs. 

In selecting a mother for my family of hogs I 
should care more about her individual character 
than about her breed. A good brood sow ought to 
have a good disposition, which means a good diges- 
tion, and respond quickly to kindness. Nervous, 
irritable sows often develop vicious habits. A 
short, broad face, a wide space between the eyes, 
a deep chest, broad back, and large hams with rather 
short legs are all considered good points. A good- 
natured, healthy pig has a bright, friendly manner 
when accosted and a look of shrewd though guile- 
less interest in his master. 

"Dirty as a pig" is a slander on the pig and a 



130 OUTDOOR WORK 

censure on its owner. Pigs and goats are more 
particular about their beds than either horses or 
cows. Success with porkers is spelt c-l-e-a~n-Ui- 
n-e-s-s. They like to wallow in the edge of a slug- 
gish stream on a warm day. Well, so do you. 
Mud is not dirty unless mixed with foul manure 
and decaying vegetable matter. 

All feeding troughs, floors, and beds should be 
thoroughly scraped, swept, and dried if the pigs are 
to be healthy, happy, and comfortable. Under 
no other conditions does keeping pigs pay. 

You will be very fortunate if your young sow's 
first litter numbers ten or a dozen lively youngsters. 
Six or eight will not be bad if she raises them all, 
and with care she ought to. Improper care and 
feeding before the pigs come are usually responsible 
for any cannibalistic habits developed by the sow. 
Corn alone is not a good ration except for fattening. 
Used with wheat, middlings, bran, and ground 
oats, with plenty of clover or alfalfa hay, corn is 
all right. The sow should be put into a pen by her- 
self before farrowing time. The best bedding is 
clean wheat or rye straw, which should not be left 
until it is wet and filthy. Sprinkle air-slaked lime 
in the sleeping pen under the fresh bedding. A sick 
pig means a neglectful owner. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 131 

Pigs ought to grow fast and without any check. 
At six months old they should weigh two hundred 
pounds, an average gain you see, of over a pound 
a day. With a good, healthy mother little pigs 
need no extra feeding the first month. The sow 
should be given nourishing food, bran and ground 
oats and rye, lots of skim milk and an abundance 
of clean, fresh water. 

If the pigs seem hungry when only a couple of 
weeks old a little, new trough should be made for 
them. A small quantity of boiled corn and skim- 
milk should be put into this trough where the little 
fellows can get to it but the sow cannot. They 
may not take much at first, but several hours later 
the trough should be rinsed and a fresh supply given. 
Sour, dirty milk may produce serious sickness in 
young pigs and check growth. The sow will wean 
them when she gets ready, and they will not know 
the difference if they get used to their trough early. 

It is possible to raise and fatten pigs in pens, but 
it is not economical. Pasture is essential to their 
best growth. It gives them exercise, and the green 
food not only nourishes them, but aids in the diges- 
tion of the more concentrated foods. The expres- 
sion, "Pigs in clover," is based on fact. A happy, 
healthy, money-maker is the pasture-fed pig. He 



132 OUTDOOR WORK 

will put on his ten cents' worth a day of bone, muscle 
and fat at less expense in' a clover patch than else- 
where. Alfalfa or cow peas will serve him about 
as well. Fruit windfalls are good for him, too. 

If you live on a place where grain or fruit are 
the main crops and a few cows are kept, you are 
losing a great opportunity if you are not raising 
a few pigs. They dispose of the surplus on such 
farms, as well as the unsalable garden crops and 
weeds, and pay their board day by day. 

The owner should keep a close account with his 
pigs. If they eat what would otherwise be wasted 
you are so much to the good. What you sell them 
for, less what you have paid out for food, equals what 
you get for your time. 

Raising Chickens 

Success with chickens does not depend upon the 
breed, nor upon any patent devices for hatching 
and brooding, nor on any special mixture of feed. 
You can find frenzied advertisers trying to dis- 
prove these statements, but do not your own 
observations bear me out.'* However, I ven- 
ture to say that with common-sense and gumption, 
and a real liking for chickens, success in this line 
is nearly certain. There are dozens of good stories 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 133 

of boys who have begun chicken raising at twelve 
to fourteen years of age and have made money 
at it, beside training themselves at the same 
time in business methods and efficiency. There are 
no good reasons why girls also should not succeed. 

There are certain principles of poultry culture 
upon which most people agree. These are based 
on a knowledge of hen nature and are the result of 
study and experience. We will discuss them under 
the following heads: 

1, Housing and Care; 2, Food and Feeding; 
3, Raising Young Stock; 4, Business Methods. 

Housing 

This first department properly includes not only 
the house proper 
with all its in- 
terior fixtures 
and its care, but 
the runs, the 
scratching shed, 

and all that has Frame for eleven-dollar chicken house 

to do with the supply of air, warmth and sunshine 
and the protection of the flock from disease and 
vermin. No matter how plain and ordinary your 
chicken house is, the test of your fitness for the 




134 OUTDOOR WORK 

business comes with its care, not once a month, 
but day by day. 

Many people have an idea that the only 
way to keep hens healthy and productive is 
to let them range. Of course it is true that 
chickens on the farm seem to pick up a free 
living, but it is equally true that, as a general 
thing, the farmer does not keep any account 
with his chickens, and if they get into the corn 
crib or granary he does not know how much grain 
they eat and how much they waste. If they hide their 
nests and the eggs spoil, or if they sit and the 

chicks do not 
live to get to 
the barnyard, 
the owner is 
unaware of his 
loss. If, having 
no house and 
nest boxes, the 

Chicken house a boy can build hcnS lay in the 

weeds, in the wood pile, in the straw stack, in the 
haymow, it's no loss, for the women and children 
hunt the eggs and their time isn't worth anything! 
But do you believe there are any farm hens whose 
portraits will appear in the big magazines? Did 




RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 135 

you see that one last year in Collier* s Weekly? 
Do you suppose there are many 200-eggers on 
farms with all their supposed advantages? I don't. 
But we shall never know, because no accurate records 
can be kept of chickens that run at large. 

I shall take it for granted that you expect to begin 
in a small way with very little to invest. Remem- 
ber that a few hens pay better per hen than a large 
number, but on the other hand it takes about as 
much time to care for a dozen as it does for one 
hundred. You will therefore look forward with 
satisfaction to increasing your flock as your capital 
grows and your time becomes more valuable. 

Have you a suitable place for chickens? It 
should be dry, sunny, though with some shade, 
protected from severe winds and storms. The sun 
is the greatest purifier and disinfector in the uni- 
verse, and you must have your house face the south 
or east if possible. Whether your first house is 
made of store boxes or of expensive matched lumber 
the principles are the same. To make the house 
dry it should be built on well-drained soil and should 
sit up six inches from the surface of the ground 
so that air can circulate freely beneath. 

The only heat in the hen house comes from the 
hens and the sunshine. Therefore, to make the 



136 OUTDOOR WORK 

house warm you should have it small enough so 
that your hens can generate heat enough to keep 

warm in winter. The ex- 
posure should be such 
that the sun can get into 
it. If possible it should 
be shaded by trees or 
other buildings against 
storms and summer sun. 
Every hen needs from 
four to five square feet 
of floor space and only 
eight to ten cubic feet of 
air space. Square houses 
Self-feed grit box are more economical to 

build. Figure out with diagrams and drawings to 
scale just how large a building is needed to house 
your flock when you get it. How low at the back 
can you make it without bumping your head when 
you go inside .'' How high in front must it be to 
provide space for your door and window.'^ What 
shaped roof will be easiest to build, most economical 
of lumber, and most satisfactory as a rain shed? 

Consider many things in the selection of material. 
Rough boards are a little cheaper, but how they do 
ruin good paint and whitewash brushes! Matched 




RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 137 

boards are cheaper and tighter than unmatched 
boards with strips nailed over the cracks. For the 
roof some kind of water-proof roofing material will 
keep the house warm and dry. If you have ever 
seen a chicken house with a cement floor you will 
be determined to have that kind. At first the ex- 
pense may be greater than for boards, but if you 
live in your own home you can afford to put a 
cement floor in the chicken house sooner or later, 
especially if you do the work yourself. If you are 
a renter you will not feel like putting in expensive, 
permanent improvements. It will be warm and dry, 
saving many losses from wet feet and diseases 
brought on by dampness and cold. It is easy to 
clean. It will do away with the rat problem, and 
last forever. You can put it in after the house is 
built. Figure out the cost of a layer of cement one 
and one half inches thick laid on a bed of gravel and 
small stones. The cement is mixed as follows: one 
part Portland cement, three parts clean sand, five 
parts gravel. Mix the cement pretty thick, tamp 
it down conscientiously until perfectly level, then 
with a trowel smooth it and smooth it, over and 
over, until the surface is free from anything like a 
stone or large pebble. 

The door to the chicken house should be well 



138 OUTDOOR WORK 

hung, easy to open, shut, and lock. The window 

is to admit light and sunshine, especially the latter. 

Very small panes may be cheap but they shut out 

the sun; twelve eight by ten panes in a single sash 

make a window of convenient size. The window 

should be placed so that the sun can get way back 

to the very farthest corner of the house. A high 

window is better for this than a low one. The 

diagram shows why. 

^ — Tl ^^ 

I>IReCTION OF SUN^ 




-75-0 



The windows should be placed high enough to let the sun in to 
the back of the house 

Sunshine and exercise are necessary for healthy 
fowls. They can stand cold weather well, if they 
are kept dry and active. Scratching sheds or open- 
front pens provide sunshine and exercise. 

Scratching for food in the litter keeps hens moving 
and they get to be very athletic, jumping up to 
cabbages and fresh meat or grain self-feeders hung 
just out of reach. Scratching sheds in the North 
need adjustable curtains of coarse muslin to keep out 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 139 

driving rain, snow, and sleet. The State Agricultural 
Experiment Station at Orono, Maine, has made 
valuable studies of curtained sheds, and the use 
of this form of poultry house has found favour 
all over the country. 
The furniture of the 
hen house consists of 
roosts, dropping board, 
nests, dust box, and 
utensils to hold ground 
feed, grit, shell, and 
water. In making and 
erecting each piece ask 
yourself, "Will this be 
easy to clean .f^" The 
roosts should be in the 
corner farthest from 
door and window, out 

of all draughts. There Grain self-feeder for fowls 

should be enough of them to provide each fowl 
with six to eight inches of room and they should be 
set at least a foot apart. Do not have the roosts at 
different levels. It is hen nature to want the highest 
place, and they will fight and crowd and worry each 
other if there is a higher roost. Pieces of two by two, 
with the upper edge rounded, make good perches. 




140 OUTDOOR WORK 

As the floor of the chicken house is also the dining 
table for the occupants it is extremely important 
that there should be a well-built platform under 
the roosts for droppings, in order to keep the floor 
clean. There should be space enough between this 




Corner in chicken house, showing up-to-date furniture 

board and the perches to allow you to clean it fre- 
quently without difiiculty. 

If you ever tried to clean a range of wall nests 
you know why the up-to-date poultry men are dis- 
carding them as unsanitary. Many are now placing 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 141 

their nests under the dropping board. They 
are out of the way here, not too high for the hens, 
nor too low for you. Square nests, fourteen inches 
each way and at least a foot from the droppings 
platform, are satisfactory. A long door hinged at 
the top and hooked at the bottom should form the 
back of a row of nests. You open this to gather 
eggs and to clean the nests. The front, where the 
hens enter, should be in behind under the platform. 
As it is rather dark in there, the hens are pleased, 
because they like to preserve the old-time fiction 
that they are hiding their nests away. The nest 
should be five or six inches deep. Straw is the best 
nesting material. Short hay is next best. A hen can- 
not be happy with excelsior twisted round her toes 
and an unhappy hen is an unproductive hen. 

The dust bath must be provided. Most baths 
are wet but hens are dry cleaners. The dust bath 
must be dry to be of any use; the lighter, finer, and 
dryer the better. A sunny corner of the house 
or shed is the best place. Sifted coal ashes and 
street dust is a good mixture. 

Allow just as much space for the runs as you can 
afford to fence. If possible divide the enclosure in 
two and keep one part seeded to clover while the 
chickens are in the other. The heavier fowls usually 



142 OUTDOOR WORK 

make very little trouble flying over a fence of 
five foot wire netting even though it have no top 
strip. Clipping one wing may be necessary to 
restrain some individuals. Small trees in the runs 
are most desirable. Plant there such small fruit trees 
as plum or cherry and the hens will help to keep 
insects in check. 

One of the biggest items of work in the chicken 
business is keeping the house clean. The health, com- 
fort, happiness, 
and the very life 
of the hens, as well 
as the business, 
depend on this. 
Many a boy with 
a sort of natural 
knack at carpen- 
try can build a 
chicken house out 
of second - hand 
lumber or out of 
a couple of piano 

Covered dust bath in sunny comer boXCS. B U t it 

takes a long distance form of gumption to keep any 
chicken house sanitary. The droppings should be 
cleaned up often and right here a word to the wise. 




RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 143 

Hen manure is a valuable garden fertilizer if it is 
sprinkled with land plaster while fresh. Otherwise it 
may become very nearly worthless. So if you have a 
garden or can dispose of your fertilizer every day or 
two you can make something extra on this by- 
product by a semi-weekly cleaning of roosts and 
droppings board. Litter is not dirt in the chicken 
house but it ought to be dry, fresh litter. 

It is not enough that the house should look 
clean. The obvious dirt, bad as it is, does less harm 
than the almost invisible vermin that lurk in the 
crevices of roosts, nests, and walls. Whitewash 
is a very wholesome finish for the interior and should 
be put on at least twice a year. This is not enough 
however. Every square inch of surface should be 
wet thoroughly with some liquid which is sure 
death to vermin. Spray or brush may be used. I 
wonder if this could be done too often in hot weather. 
Once a month is probably often enough if good 
insect powder is used on the hens and in the nests. 
In winter the vermin are less active, but it is not 
safe to neglect them even then. 

FOOD AND FEEDING 

Hens are known to be omnivorous. They must 
have animal and mineral as well as vegetable food. 



144 OUTDOOR WORK 

They need these things in variable quantities 
depending on their occupation. The hen's main 
duties are growing, laying, brooding, moulting, fat- 
tening. She needs a great variety of these three 
classes of foods throughout her life. Study your flock, 
read of the experiences of others in magazines, 
bulletins, and books, follow their advice, and work 
out mixtures and methods to suit your conditions 
after you gain experience. The hens will give you 
many a hint. Let them out of the pen now and 
then just before feeding time and see how they 
make for the grass. In the evening the earthworms 
are near the surface. The hens devour them 
greedily. You can get the flock back easily if you 
have a call, whistle, or other signal which they 
associate with grain-scattering, but they will go in 
at twilight anyhow. 

Sitting hens need less food because of their sed- 
entary occupation. The main thing is to keep 
food and fresh water where they can get it when 
t*hey want it, or see that they go to it regularly. 

Broody hens are a trial. The common practices 
of starving them, ducking them, and otherwise 
subjecting them to indignities, are little short of 
cruel and often fail to cure their natural desire to 
sit. Stop and reason not with, but about, 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 145 

the hen. Having laid all the eggs nature has pro- 
vided during the spring, the hen's instinct is to 
brood and rear a nestful. She has worked hard 
and maybe is run down physically. Feel her 




Racks over feed pans prevent waste and soiling food 

bones. What you want from her is more eggs. 
Instead of wasting time "getting even" with 
her for being a nuisance, try some rational way of 
breaking up her desire to sit. Remove her imme- 
diately from the nest to a coop. Instead of starving 
her give her a plentiful supply of the diet you have 
found best for layers. She will probably soon 
begin to lay again if treated sensibly. 

Moulting is a perfectly natural process but it 
occurs at the end of the season and the chickens 
are often in a low state of vitality. For this reason 
it is a critical time. Study the hens. Find out 
what their physical condition is at moulting season. 
The best condition is half-way between fat and thin. 



146 OUTDOOR WORK 

If they are thin, provide a wholesome diet rich in 
fatty foods, as corn, oats, sunflower, and some flax- 
seed, with bran, meat scraps, and clover. If heavy 
with fat from too rich a diet in the summer, less of 
the fat-producing foods makes a better moulting diet. 

The quality and flavour of the eggs and meat 
depend pretty much on the kind of food given. If 
filth is taken into the hen's system it affects her gen- 
eral health and efficiency. There is an opinion that 
hens and pigs are by nature dirty. We will not 
stop to argue that, but your hens will eat nothing 
but clean food if nothing else is provided. That's 
certain! Look to your feeding racks and watering 
pans. Use water freely and a stiff brush or cloth. 
Clean water is positively necessary. All sorts of 
diseases lurk in dirty houses, filthy runs, and stale, 
unclean feeding and drinking pans. 

Regularity in feeding is important. Do not go 
into this business if you expect frequently to be 
otherwise employed at feeding time. The main 
feedings are two, morning and late afternoon, 
for whole or cracked grain scattered in the litter. 
Ground grain should be there, in a hopper, at all 
hours in summer and all the afternoon the rest of 
the year. The exercise they must take to get the 
grain keeps the hens from getting fat and lazy. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 147 

A busy hen is a happy hen and a productive hen. 
Hang a half cabbage up just out of reach in the 
house on a stormy day and see them train for the 
standing broad jump ! If you can get what is known 
as "the haslet," really the lungs, heart, and liver of 
a porker or lamb, you can suspend this in the same 
way and they will work all the better for it. 

RAISING YOUNG CHICKENS 

It is poor practice to set your hens in the chicken 
house. Prepare as many fresh nests as you expect 
to need. Put them in the cellar, unused shed, 




Model chicken coop — open on pleasant days 



148 OUTDOOR WORK 

under the porch, or any convenient and protected 
place. Doors of wire netting or slats are a great 
convenience. When a hen is broody, take her off the 
nest the first night and put her into the new place 
with an artificial egg or two. Ten to one she will 
stay all right. If not, do not waste time with her. 
When assured that her mind is Unalterably made 
up, give her thirteen eggs and close the door on her 
again. Set two or three the same day and later 
combine the flocks under one hen. Select the eggs 
with reference to their shape, size, and quality of 
shell. Misshapen, very large, or very small eggs 
or those with thin shells are worthless for setting. 
Set the eggs of the best layers. Every morning 
take sitters off nests, leave food and water for 
them, and return in half an hour. Usually they 
are all back in their places in less time than that. 
If not, you can replace and shut them in again. 
In eighteen to twenty-one days the eggs will hatch. 
Probably more little chicks die from lice than 
from any other cause. Preventive measures must 
begin early. Get fresh, dry insect powder and treat 
the nest and hen about the third, the ninth, and the 
fifteenth day of incubation. Rub the powder all 
through the feathers. Fine dust obstructs the 
breathing pores of the lice and kills them. When 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 149 

you take the chicks from the nest examine the head, 
neck, and vent regions of every one. If lice are 
present a drop of melted lard will put an end to 
them. Constant vigilance and nothing short of it, 
will prevent death from lice. 

A good home-made lice powder, costing only 
about four cents a pound, may be made as 
follows: Mix together one quarter pint crude 




Prop the door open, thus, in rain, wind, or too hot sun 

carbolic acid (90 per cent, pure), and three quarters 
of a pint of gasoline. Stir into this enough plaster 
of Paris to take up the liquid, (about two and 
one half pounds). Mix thoroughly and rub through 
a wire mosquito screen to break the lumps. This 
can be used to dust through the feathers, the 
day after it is made. Keep in a tight jar or 



150 OUTDOOR WORK 

box. This powder is the invention of an expert 
in poultry husbandry. 

The coops for hen and chicks need not be pon- 
derous, but they should be rain proof. A coop 
two and one half feet_square with removable roof 
and floor is not too heavy to handle and answers 
every purpose. A wire netting run three or four 




Closed for the night. Vermin-proof, weather-proof. Screen-covered 
ventilator on one side 

feet long attached to each coop is necessary and this 
combination will house a hen and from fifteen to 
twenty chickens. 

All the food a young chick needs the first twenty- 
four hours is provided by nature. After that it 
is "up to you." Their first meal may be hard- 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 151 

boiled eggs minced finely, shells and all, and mixed 
with oatmeal or custard made of milk and eggs 
baked hard, or it may be baked and crumbled corn 
bread. By the third day they will be ready for raw 
broken grain. There are many good commercial 







Bottom of model coop can be cleaned by lifting up the coop 

kinds: less trouble than making your own mixtures. 
The chicks will learn to scratch for this in a week 
or two. The hen is their teacher. Fine grit, char- 
coal, and clean water must be kept where they can 
get what they want. Soft food should not be fed 



152 OUTDOOR WORK 

in unlimited quantities; give what they will eat in 
five or ten minutes, then take it away. They are 
likely to over-eat of wet mashes, but what they have 
to work for is not likely to give them indigestion. 

When chickens are two months old they no 
longer need wet mash. They should now have 
access to food whenever they want it. A mixture 
of cracked corn, wheat, beef scrap, bone, grit, shell, 
and other grains, with dry middlings and bran, may 
be put into a slatted self-feeder, like the illustration, 
easily constructed by yourself. It is not much 
trouble to see that this is never empty. If fed 
only at intervals they rush at you, bolt the biggest 
grains, stuff their crops, crowd away weak or modest 
ones; result, some are under-fed, others are over- 
fed. If food is kept where they can get it when- 
ever they happen to think of it they take a rea- 
sonable amount, then visit the growing clover or 
grass, pick up a casual pebble, take a drink of water, 
scratch out a worm, and return to the feed tray, all 
in natural course of the day's work. 

You will want to get rid of most of your young 
cockerels as soon as they are marketable. Broilers 
bring highest prices. To put them in tip-top con- 
dition they should be fattened for about two to 
three weeks when they are four months old. There 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 153 

is nothing better for fattening than a mash made 
of equal parts finely ground corn meal and wheat 
middlings with one fourth the quantity of meat 
meal. This should be wet with sour skim-milk 
or buttermilk and fed in a semi-liquid condition, 
about the consistency of pancake batter. Ground 
oats may be added. The product is known in the 
highest priced city hotels as "milk fed" or even 
* ' cream fed ' ' chicken. If you can get skim-milk cheap 
why not buy a bunch of young cockerels and stuff 
them for market ? They have been known to put on a 
pound for every five pounds of this mixture eaten. 

BUSINESS METHODS 

The day you drive your first nail into what is to 
be your chicken house you should start an account. 
Every item should go down, cost of materials, cost of 
stock, cost of feed. Economize where you can by 
utilizing vacant space for growing clover for summer 
feed and some root crop like mangolds for winter 
supply. Apples are fine in winter for hens. You 
can often get bushels of windfalls for the picking. 
Sunflowers are easy to grow and their heads hold a 
tremendous lot of chicken feed. Table scraps ground 
with a hand mill vary the hen's diet, but do avoid 
sloppy messes. 



154 OUTDOOR WORK 

There are two sides to every account. If you 
charge the chickens with what they cost you, it is 
only fair to yourself and to them to credit them ^vith 
the eggs and meat they furnish, as well as with 
increase of stock, etc. 

In every flock there are some idlers. They lay 
only a hundred or so eggs, they leave their eggs 




Trap-nest open. The hen's weight shuts the door behind her 

too long when sitting, or they never put on any 
weight. You want to be rid of all such. You can 
mark the bad sitters, and send them to the pot, as 
well as those whose habits are such as to make them 
a nuisance. But you need to know which fowls 
lay the biggest and best eggs and which lay the 
largest number. For market in our country where 
eggs are sold by the dozen it is numbers that count, 
but for breeding you want eggs of good size and 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 155 

shape. You also want to set the eggs of the good 
layers. These eggs taste no better in cake or omelet, 
but by careful selection you can breed a strain of 
extra good layers, right in your hen house. The 
device known as a trap- nest is the thing you will 
need if you go at it scientifically. You want it in 
winter, too, to prevent killing your best hens for 
potpie, while the idlers cheerfully eat your grain 
without recompense. The simpler the mechanism 
of the trap -nest the better. It must stand open 




Trap-nest closed after hen has gone in 

until the hen enters, then close without frightening 
her. Most of them keep the hen a prisoner until 
you go and examine the nest, credit the hen by her 
leg-band number, and release her. By following the 
drawings in the bulletins of the New York and Maine 
Experiment Stations referred to in the list of bulletins 
on chickens you can construct your own trap-nests. 



156 OUTDOOR WORK 

There are people who claim that "common 
chickens" or mixed breeds are hardier than pure 
bred fowls and better all around producers. How 
many can show records to make good that claim? 
American boys and girls who go into chicken raising 
will want to breed from good pure stock. Nothing 
is too good for them. Did you ever hear any one 
show any enthusiasm when passing a flock of mon- 
grels.'^ Contrast this with the delight you and all 
your friends take in the sight of a hundred fowls 
all white, all red, all spangled, all black, all piebald, 
all blue, or all speckled, as alike as peas in a pod ! 
I vote for the pure stock every time. You can keep 
it pure and strong by exchanging cockerels with 
other breeders of the same variety and with similar 
ideals and practices. 

Keeping chickens isn't mere child's play. There's 
lots to be done. You must be carpenter, gardener, 
breeder, merchant, and even doctor, all rolled into 
one. But there is fun in it and profit in it. Better 
than all, there is a satisfaction in doing a good job 
and doing it well, and it keeps a boy out of doors 
where he belongs if he's a healthy boy. 

As with many other products of home industry 
the first and best market is the home market. 
Credit the hens with every pound of meat you 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 



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158 OUTDOOR WORK 

furnish for the table and every egg consumed by 
the family. But you will soon need to extend your 
market. Across the street, up and down on both 
sides, you can find people who like ** personally 
conducted" eggs and prefer that the fowls served 
on their tables should be acquaintances rather than 
the embalmed kind. You must be business man 
enough to work up a trade for fresh, clean eggs in 







A useful hen gate 



attractive packages, and for wholesome meat. It 
would be a good stroke of business to date your eggs 
if you know what demand you can depend on. That 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 159 

would help impress the idea of real freshness on the 
consumer's mind. 

If you pluck fowls for market it will interest you 
to know that feathers have a market value. They 
should be plucked dry and the wing and tail feathers 
kept separate. Any large city dealer in chickens 
will probably take your feathers. By-products 
often make the difference between plus and minus 
in a year's business. 

The winner of the first prize of one hundred dollars 
in the Junior Poultry Contest of the Oregon Agri- 
cultural College tells this story: 

RAISING CHICKENS 

Boys and girls should raise chickens in the city 
as well as on the farm because it pays and is 
a fine occupation. It is a work that never grows 
tiresome and new experiences are always awaiting 
you. Various theories are advocated as to the 
proper manner of feeding and housing to get the 
best results but simple rules are the best to begin 
with. Plenty of clean water, clean houses and 
yards and good feed are needed to get the best 
results. Spade up a little in the chicken yard every 
day that is pleasant, but if it is cold and in wet 
weather provide a scratching shed. Keep the hens 



160 OUTDOOR WORK 

busy. Read the bulletins furnished free by the 
government and the various experiment stations. 
Also subscribe to a good poultry paper. The ideas 
you will get from these together with your own 
experience will make you a successful poultry raiser. 
By doing all that was stated above I was able to 
win first prize in the poultry contest just closed. 

Clarence A. Hogan 

SUCCESS WITH CHICKENS 

The contest of the Portland Junior Poultry Asso- 
ciation has closed. It lasted a whole year, and it 
seemed as if it would never come to an end. But 
if it had not been for the contest I would never have 
known many of the interesting things I now know 
about chickens. 

I had twelve white Leghorn hens and a cock 
entered. They were all little beauties and I en- 
joyed working with them very much. 

They laid one thousand six hundred twenty-two 
eggs during the year. The eggs were worth from 
twenty-five to sixty cents a dozen. We fed them 
wheat, corn, barley, oats, and bran in which table 
scraps were mixed, oyster shells, grit, pre- 
pared beef scraps, charcoal, and green foods such 
as grass from the lawn, cabbage, kale, and lettuce 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 161 

and other green things from the garden. Each 
hen made us a profit of two dollars and seventy- 
two cents for the year. 

Chickens need lots of care. Their house must 
be cleaned out, there should be some fresh ground 
dug up in the yard, and they need some green food 
every day. Papa took care of the house, and I 
mowed the lawn and gave them the clippings and 
gathered cabbage leaves, kale leaves, and lettuce 
leaves out of the garden and gave them each day. 

In the spring time we let them out a few minutes 
every morning to get bugs and worms. They soon 
had all the bugs and worms scratched out of the 
garden and then they ran out in the yard and 
scratched up the flower beds, which did not please 
mamma very well. After that they wanted to go to 
the neighbour's yard but we had to keep them up. 
This was before we made the garden. 

Chickens make nice pets. They are much nicer 
than dogs or cats, and if you take good care of them 
they will pay well beside. I had a nice little white 
Leghorn hen I called "Petty." When she was 
a little chicken I would catch her every day and 
play with her. She would go in the nest and wait 
for some one to take her out and pet her. She got 
so tame that I could catch her any place in the yard. 



162 OUTDOOR WORK 

I would go in the yard and get her and take her 
out in the garden and dig for her and let her find 
the bugs and worms. 

I had another little chicken that I called "Jim." 
He was a cute little rooster. When he was just a 
little chicken I would put him to bed every night 
and when he grew a little older he would not go to 
bed alone. One night we weren't at home at his 
bedtime and when we came home that night 
we heard a funny little noise in the back yard. 
It was raining and Jim had gone under the 
sweet pea vines to sleep instead of going into 
his box. 

The first little chicks we hatched we took away 
from the hen and raised them by hand. For about 
a week after they were hatched we put them in a 
basket and covered them over with warm, woollen 
cloths and set them by the stove to keep warm over 
night. I had a peach box with a wire covering to keep 
them in, in the daytime. On sunshiny days we set 
them out in the sunshine but after about a week they 
were not satisfied with that. I decided that what 
they wanted was to get out and run for bugs. So 
one afternoon when I came home from school it 
was nice and sunshiny and I let them out of their 
box. When they first stepped into the grass they 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 163 

were surprised. That was the first time they had 
ever stepped on the lawn. They ran right to a rose 
bush and stayed right there all the time picking 
off bugs. Each evening I let them out they would 
go a little farther away from home. At last they 
had caught all the bugs around the place and if we 
did not watch, they would run over to the neighbour's 
yard. I am anxious for the time to come when 
we will have more little chicks. 

Ruth Hayes 

The girl who tells this story is thirteen years old. 
She won second prize, fifty dollars. 

ANOTHER PRIZE WINNER* S STORY 

During the time that I have been taking care of 
poultry I have been successful. I only had six 
chickens in the Oregon Junior Poultry Contest, 
five hens and a rooster, but I have about fifty other 
chickens to take care of. The chickens that I had 
in the contest were Black Minorcas, but I also raise 
White Wyandottes. I seem to have better success 
with my White Wynadottes than with my Black 
Minorcas. The house I have for the contest 
chickens is twelve feet wide and six feet long. 
The place they roost in is four feet by six 



164 OUTDOOR WORK 

and the rest is a scratching shed, which is eight 
feet by six. The house is open front and has a 
ground floor, which is dry and the chickens can 
dust in it. 

I feed them three times a day, grain morning 
and noon, which I feed in Utter, and a warm mash 
at night so they can go to roost warm. I also keep 
bran, charcoal, and grit before them all the time. 
I have a bone cutter, and feed cut bone to my 
chickens once a week. I clean off the drop board 
every morning, and once a week I coal-oil the roost 
and where the roost rests. During this cold weather 
I do not let the chickens out very early and when it 
is raining I do not let them out at all. Every night 
after the chickens have gone to roost I go out and 
throw a little grain in their litter and that gives 
them something to do the first thing in the morning. 

I am sorry that I did not have a photograph of 
myself to send you. 

Frank Mitchell 

a boy feeds six thousand hens in half an hour 

What do you know about that? I saw this feat 
done last winter by a fourteen-year old California 
boy, and I took his photograph as he was doing it. 
What can a boy not do if he has the opportunity? 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 165 

There are other boys who find it a harder task and 
a more disagreeable one to feed half a dozen hens. 
A boy can feed six thousand hens and gather 
two or three thousand eggs a day and go to 
school. 

This California boy had a gray pony to help him, 
but what enabled him to perform this feat day after 
day was system. His uncle, the owner of the farm, 
had planned the work to make it easy. The farm 
contains one hundred and twenty acres, and the 
six thousand hens are scattered over the whole 
farm in colony houses. The system of feeding 
was a liberal feed of soft mash in the morn- 
ing. Three colony houses were placed together. 
The middle one was a laying house; the other two, 
roosting houses. In one end of the laying house 
there was a wheat bin holding several sacks of wheat. 
The bin was a self-feeding hopper. After dinner 
the fourteen-year old boy jumped on his gray horse 
and made the rounds of the houses, opening a door 
to the hopper of wheat, so that the hens could eat 
at will during the afternoon. It took just a moment 
to jump off of his horse, open the door, and jump 
on again, the horse going on the lope between the 
houses. He made the rounds in less than half 
an hour. About three or four o'clock he hitched 



166 OUTDOOR WORK 

his pony to a low wagon and visited all the houses, 
gathering the eggs. This was a bigger job than 
feeding the hens; he could not go as fast with the 
eggs. In the morning, about seven o'clock, he makes 
the rounds of the houses, and without getting off 
his horse opens the doors to the laying houses, and 
does it all in fifteen minutes. What do you know 
about that? 

James Dryden 

AN amateur's experience 

In April, nineteen hundred and one, I purchased 
four broody hens, two settings of White Wyandotte 
eggs, and two of Plymouth Rock. I live in a suburban 
district where dogs and cats abound and poultry can- 
not have free range. I therefore made two wire- 
covered board runs, six feet by eight, eighteen inches 
high, and against a six-inch hole sawed in one end of 
each I placed a box turned on its side for a coop. 
Of twenty-eight Wyandotte eggs, twenty-six hatched, 
and three chicks died. Of twenty-six Plymouth 
Rocks only three hatched, and these I put with 
the Wyandottes in care of the two most motherly 
hens. 

Every morning I fed a mash of meal, shorts, 
and beef scraps, in equal parts, mixed dry with 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 167 

boiling water; at noon and night oatmeal, cracked 
wheat, or occasionally cracked corn, and clean 
table scraps at any time. Oyster shells and fresh 
water were always before them. Mothers and 
children ate together, each taking what she liked 
best. As often as they soiled the grass I shifted 
the runs, and on fine days I let the families out 
for an hour before dark into an adjoining field, 
keeping an eye on their wanderings. 

October first I sold the four hens, which had 
laid meanwhile fifteen and a half dozen eggs. 
Twelve chicks were cockerels, which were killed as 
needed. 

November first I reduced the daily feed to two 
meals — a warm mash at half past eight a.m. so that 
they would scratch awhile before being fed, and for 
supper grain, generally oats, scattered about the 
yard, with a few handfuls inside the house to induce 
more scratching. They had all they would eat, 
but if they left any food I skipped the next meal 
and let them get hungry. The water was renewed 
often, dishes kept clean, and field excursions con- 
tinued occasionally. 

November sixth I sold the first dozen eggs, and 
for eleven months the supply never failed. The 
eggs were large, and the hens were active, healthy. 



168 OUTDOOR WORK 

and happy. Any success I attribute to moderate 
feeding, exercise, and cleanliness. 

May 1, 1901, to August 15, 1902 

EXPENSES 

Eggs, White Wyandotte $2.00 

Express .25 

Eggs, Plymouth Rock 1 . 00 

4 hens 2.60 

Boards, net, and boxes 1 . 22 

Grain, 15j^ months 31.41 

$38.48 

RECEIPTS 

Eggs, 14 pullets, 162 dozen $47.33 

Eggs, 4 hens, 15}/^ dozen 3.92 

12 cockerels, 5514. pounds 10 . 35 

4 hens 2.00 

14 hens (sold by reason of my illness) 8 . 00 

2 barrels dressing 1 . 50 

Runs, etc., on hand 1.00 

$74.10 
38.48 

Profit $35.62 

Belle S. Cragin 

how i started with hens 

I am a boy, thirteen years old, and have always 
been very fond of farm animals, especially chickens. 
I like the White Wyandottes best for all-around, 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 169 

general-purpose fowls. They lay well, and when 
they are dressed for market there are no dark pin- 
feathers to spoil their looks. 

In April, nineteen hundred and five, I purchased 
two settings of White Wyandotte eggs at the Rhode 
Island College, and borrowed two broody hens. I 
bought one of these hens later, but she soon died. 
I fixed up an old pig house that was on the place, 
and set the hens in this house. 

While they were sitting, papa helped me make 
two coops and pens for them. For the coop I 
took a dry-goods box, about four feet by one and 
one half feet by fifteen inches, and made a door 
in one corner large enough to admit a hen. In one 
end I bored some holes and covered them with 
wire netting, for ventilation. 

For the pen I took four pieces of scantling and a 
good supply of laths. I used the pieces of scantling 
for the corner-posts and nailed the laths on the sides, 
top, and one end. I did not put anything on the 
other end except the top and bottom strips. The 
pen is just the length of a lath, but the width is a 
little less. The open end is placed against the front 
of the coop ; the hen can then come out into the pen, 
and the chicks can go anywhere. 

After awhile the chicks hatched and there were 



170 OUTDOOR WORK 

sixteen of them. At first I fed them a mash of corn 
meal and bran and later a little cracked corn and 
wheat. They grew finely, but I raised only thir- 
teen of them, eight of which were pullets. 

I fed them in the back yard for a while, but they 
dug the grass up so that I had to stop it. Then 
I built a scratching-pen by the wood shed, to feed 
them in. 

In the summer the chickens were roosting in 
the trees, and when cold weather came and I wanted 
them to roost in the hen house they would not do it. 
I tried feeding them there, and driving them in; 
but that did not work very well, because I could not 
drive them all in at once, and when I drove some in 
and tried to get the rest, the first ones would come 
out again. So I had my brother help me, and every 
night we would carry them down to the hen house. 
After a time they learned to roost there. 

The pullets began to lay early in November 
and laid well all winter. I am proud of one of 
my hens. She laid two hundred and thirty-eight 
eggs from the eighth of November, nineteen hundred 
and five, to the fifth of August, nineteen hundred and 
six. I think this is a very good record, considering 
that during the most of that time she was fed nothing 
but cracked corn. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 171 

During the first part of the winter of nineteen 
hundred and six to nineteen hundred and seven 
the hens did not lay very well, and I asked one of 
the poultry men at the Rhode Island College what 
to feed them to make them lay. He told me what 
he had fed with good success, and as it made my 
hens lay, it may make somebody else's hens lay. 

GRAIN 

r Whole corn 

Equal parts, by weight, of ] Wheat 

(.Oats 

MASH 

fBran 

Equal parts, by weight, of ) Middlings 

j Corn meal 
(Beef scraps 

This means that they will get more wheat and 
oats than corn, and more bran and middlings than 
corn meal. I feed the grain morning and night, and 
the mash at noon. The mash may be fed either wet 
or dry. I have tried it both ways but I like to feed it 
dry fully as well for two reasons : First the hens cannot 
gobble it up so fast and all get an equal share; second, 
the hens lay just as well and it saves labour. 

Feed is expensive here and it cost me three dollars 
and thirty-nine cents for one hundred pounds of both 
kinds. I think I shall continue to feed it till I find 



172 OUTDOOR WORK 

something better, and I would recommend it to 
any one who desires a good, satisfactory feed. 
My poultry record for one year is as follows: 

POULTRY ACCOUNT 
DR. CE. 

Jan., feed $3.15 Jan., eggs $2.63 

March, feed .24 Jan., roaster .75 

April, shells .20 Feb., eggs 2.28 

May, feed 1.85 March, eggs 1.88 

June, feed 1.26 April, eggs 1.41 

July, feed 1 . 28 May, eggs 1 . 96 

Aug., feed 3.38 June, eggs 2.32 

Oct., feed 1.24 July, eggs 1.85 

Nov., feed 1.24 Aug., eggs .63 

Sept., eggs 1.12 

Total $13.84 Sept., roaster 65 

Oct., eggs 1.S2 

Oct., premium .75 

Nov., eggs .38 

$19.93 

Profit $6.09 

Two of my hens died during the first year, leaving 
six, hence these six paid a profit of one dollar and 
one and one half cent each, above cost of feed. 

Leslie E. Card 



HOW ONE YOUNG WOMAN MADE A START WITH 
POULTRY 

We had long dreamed of a country home, my 
mother and I — of a place where living expenses 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 173 

would be lessened and which would be pleasant 
during the summer for my sisters, who teach eight 
months of the year — a place where we could add 
materially to our income by keeping chickens. 

After discarding the idea of buying near New York 
City, because of the higher value of land and greater 
cost of living, we chose a place of twelve acres on 
the edge of an aristocratic old town in western New 
York. Being within the corporation limits we have 
water and sewer connections, hardware and lumber 
delivered ( which is quite an item when one is build- 
ing poultry houses) ; and, best of all, the expressman 
comes for all eggs and poultry. A woman intending 
to go into the poultry business will certainly find 
such a location a great advantage over being far- 
ther from town. The increase in taxes is slight. 
The cost of expressage is, of course, greater than if we 
had located near New York City, but grain is cheaper. 

We purchased the place in the fall to have posses- 
sion the following March. During the winter, I 
took the three months' Poultry Course at Cornell 
University. The course is comprehensive and very 
practical. Beside learning the principles of poultry 
husbandry, I gained confidence and courage. 

We paid two thousand six hundred dollars for 
the property and spent four hundred dollars more 



174 OUTDOOR WORK 

in plumbing and repairs on the house. The place 
consists of about twelve acres of very good land, 
especially suited for poultry, being somewhat sandy 
and sloping enough for drainage. The house is small 
but well built. The view is magnificent, and the place 
is easily adaptable to some charming bits of landscape 
gardening which good taste and personal supervision 
can accomplish without expensive gardener's fees. 

We first built some brooder houses, gasolene 
heated, as used at Cornell, and purchased day-old 
chicks of a good laying strain. Late in the summer 
we built a five-pen laying house, the pens being twenty 
by twenty feet, using one pen for a feed room. The 
entire first year we took care of the poultry our- 
selves, with the assistance of a schoolboy who worked 
for his board. Most of the land was in hay, which 
we hired cut and sold, and we raised some corn. 
I knew nothing about farming, and was so interested 
in chickens that I had little time to study; however, 
I got the Cornell bulletins on alfalfa and started an 
acre according to their suggestions. This has been 
successful and is fine feed for poultry. 

The second spring we hired a man by the month. 
One man can take care of twelve hundred hens and 
the horse, carry coal, and drive for us some of the time. 
The regular farm work we hire done by the day. A 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 175 

woman needs to pay special attention to keeping 
down the labour expenses. 

The laying hens have about three acres for yards. 
This is divided into three different yards, one for 
the four hundred best pullets which I take the time 
to trap-nest, and the third one to be alternated with 
the other two so that they can all be ploughed and 
seeded, in order to keep the ground from becoming 
contaminated. I have planted cherry trees in one 
yard and will in the others later, to furnish shade 
for the fowls. I chose cherries for various reasons. 
They can stand the enrichment and the treatment 
of the land necessary for poultry; also, if they are 
well cared for, sprayed, etc., I can get a fancy market 
for them at home. The place had been noted in 
former years for its fine cherry orchard, so I believed 
the soil and location to be well adapted to them. 

We felt we could not afford to build an incubator 
cellar, so we moved the furniture from a north-east 
bedroom where we placed three four-hundred -egg 
incubators. We closed the east shutters so that 
the morning sun would not interfere with the 
temperature and used the north window for ventila- 
tion. It was successful and convenient. 

The brooder houses are located near the house 
as long as the little chicks need hea,t. I have started 



176 OUTDOOR WORK 

a hedge for a windbreak in front of them, which 
will also screen the poultry part of the plantation 
from the house. When the chicks no longer need 
heat the hovers of the brooder houses are removed 
and roosts put in. The houses, which are on runners, 
are drawn to a cornfield as soon as the corn has 
grown enough not to be injured by the chicks. 
Here they have free range all summer. By moving 
the first hatches to some shack houses, which are 
cheaply built, when the chicks no longer need heat 
the brooder houses can be used once again. 

There are two cornfields for growing the pullets, 
to be used in alternate years so the ground will 
be fresh. The corn gives shade and a sense of 
security, besides furnishing a considerable part 
of the winter feed. I hope to be able to grow 
corn for several successive years on the same ground 
by sowing either clover or rape at the last culti- 
vation to furnish humus for the land. 

The following were our initial expenses : 

3 400-egg incubators $111.00 

8 brooder houses 320 . 00 

4 shack houses 60 . 00 

Laying pen for 1,200 hens 1,500.00 

Fences 94.00 

Tools and equipment for poultry 100.00 

Total $2,185.00 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 177 

Last year I cleared two dollars over the cost of 
feed from each of my layers, from the sale of eggs 
alone. 

The pleasure and freedom of country life are 
worth much. A garden with high quality vege- 
tables, fruit of all kinds and varieties, fresh eggs and 
poultry, goes a long way in making the cost of living 
less. (We save cracked, small, or misshapen eggs 
for our own use.) With a saddle horse and a tennis 
court, life in the country is far from dull. 

AvA Hooker 

PRESERVING EGGS FOR WINTER USE 

When eggs are cheap and plenty is the time 
when it w^ill pay to preserve some for winter use. 
Remember, though, that no amount of preserving, 
or cold storing will make a fresh egg out of an old 
egg. As infertile eggs keep better than fertile ones, 
it is well to separate the laying hens from the roosters 
when the hatching season is over. 

Cold storage is undoubtedly the best method for 
keeping eggs in wholesale quantities, but for home 
consumption there is nothing more satisfactory 
than a preservative called water glass which is 
sodium silicate and can be bought in crystal or 
liquid form at drug stores. Prof. J. E. Rice of 



178 OUTDOOR WORK 

Cornell University says that "the liquid form is 
very much to be preferred owing to the fact that 
it is very difficult to dissolve the crystal. One 
part of water glass to nine parts of water makes 
a liquid having a consistency not quite heavy enough 
to cause the eggs to come to the surface, but still 
sufficiently strong to furnish the coating which 
prevents the air from entering the shells." 

Stone jars are recommended as inexpensive and 
not likely to leak. Eggs taken out after nearly a 
year in the water glass and washed look like fresh 
eggs. As to taste, a very fastidious person might 
find the flavour not quite right when served as 
boiled eggs. In all other ways they are entirely 
satisfactory. 

With water glass, eggs can be preserved for less 
than two cents a dozen. In communities where 
the price of eggs varies from a cent apiece to four 
cents apiece it would be very profitable to preserve 
all the surplus. 

RAISING GUINEA FOWL 

What would you expect if you ordered "American 
pheasant" from a bill of fare in a London restau- 
rant? No matter what you expected, when the 
bird came onto the table it would be guinea hen! 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 179 

This is a dish you probably never ate at home unless 
you live in the South, '* where they know what's 
good," or make a practice of dining at fashionable 
hotels where they serve fancy game and poultry. 

Most of the guinea fowls marketed in this country 
are put into cold storage and sent to England. 
They also bring a good price in city markets in this 
country. 

Farm boys and girls all over the country are 
familiar with the strident squawk and the furtive, 
hunching trot of the speckled guinea fowl. I doubt 
if any farmer could tell why he harbours one on the 
premises, unless it is to warn his chickens of the 
presence of danger. I know of very few people 
in the North who eat either eggs or birds (if they 
know it), and the young are very seldom seen. 
Here is a really valuable game bird which silly 
prejudice is depriving of its fair share of attention. 

If farm boys realized that there is a good and 
growing market for guinea fowls, eggs, and birds, 
thej^ would read this : A fashionable New York hotel 
served three thousand of these birds between January 
first and April thirteenth, nineteen hundred and five. 
Listen to the prices: from one dollar to one dollar 
and a half per pair for young broilers in midwinter 
in the large Northern cities. Eggs twice the price 



180 OUTDOOR WORK 

of hens' eggs. Taking into consideration the fact 
that they are hardier even as chicks than ordinary 
poultry and that the market is strictly fancy and 
not oversupplied, the chances for success in guinea 
raising are good. 

In beginning this branch of business it is not 
best to buy old fowls. They are swift of wing, 
and they are extremely likely to take "French 
leave" unless closely confined for a week or more to 
their new quarters. This confinement is not very 
good for them. My advice is to begin with a setting 
of fifteen eggs under a common hen in May or 
June. The eggs are smaller than hens' eggs and 
have good, strong shells. They take from twenty- 
six to thirty days to hatch. The treatment and 
care of young guinea fowls varies from that given 
to young chickens in a few particulars only, e. g., 
the chicks should be fed very soon after hatching 
and need a large percentage of animal food when 
first hatched. Dry bread crumbs and hard-boiled 
eggs minced finely or pieces of cooked meat cut 
very fine are a good first meal. Bread and milk 
and finely chopped lettuce, cress, or other vegetation 
should be given a day or two later. They will 
pick up innumerable insects if allowed the privi- 
leges of the garden or fruit plantation. Little 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 181 

guineas should have access to feed all the time as 
a few hours without food is very likely to prove 
fatal. Like little pheasants they require a greater 
precentage of animal food than chickens because if in 
the wild they would eat little else. Soft grains should 
follow the earlier rations, and the mixtures given 
to ordinary poultry should gradually take the place 
of these. 

Old guinea fowls have the reputation for making 
very tough meat. For this reason it is bietter to 
market them while the breast bone is still tender, 
the claws still short and sharp, and before the crest 
or helmet has reached its full size or changed colour. 
In young birds the helmet is nearly black, growing 
lighter with age. 

Ordinarily it is more economical when raising a 
few guinea fowls not to confine them to runs, in which 
they are less hardy. Partial confinement, such as 
coming to the barn yard to roost and appearing regu- 
larly to be fed, is more practical. If kept in runs 
it is necessary to cover the pens. High roosts should 
be provided. During the laying season the hens 
are almost certain to hide their nests and need 
close watching. They may lay in nest boxes if 
these are in dim, secluded corners. Guinea hens are 
very wary and may resent having their nests visited. 



182 OUTDOOR WORK 

by quitting. Also, the hens seem to be able to 
count and will usually desert their own nests if all 
but one or two eggs are taken away. They are 
rather impatient sitters, often leaving the nest when 
the eggs are half incubated or when the first chick 
is ready to go, even though they have a dozen 
pipped eggs. The little ones are, like little turkeys, 
susceptible to dampness and cold. Very early and 
very late hatchings are undesirable. 

KAISING TURKEYS 

Among the pictures which my memory calls up 
is that of an old bushel basket by the kitchen stove 
on a damp spring morning. From the comforting 
folds of an old flannel petticoat in the depths of the 
basket came the feeble " peep-pea wp" of a dozen 
or more miserable little turkey chicks rescued from 
the shower. What a chase they had given us 
through the wet tangles of grass, weeds, and bushes, 
scooting to cover like partridges, hidden by their 
colouring almost as effectually as their wild cousins. 
We shall never be quite sure that we got them all, 
for we weren't certain how many there were origi- 
nally. If the chill had not penetrated to their vitals, 
and these important organs lie disastrously near 
the pin- feathers, we had been in time to save them. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 183 

Experiences like these impress upon the minds 
of farm children much that is characteristic of the 
turkey. As grown-ups we read of the precautions 
necessary in raising turkeys and realize that we 
knew all that years ago. A turkey hen will stay 
close around the barn yard eating and drinking with 
the other fowls all winter, roosting in convenient 
tree tops, and giving no hint of wildness or firmness 
of purpose. But in April you miss her. She may 
return about meal time, take a dust bath perhaps, 
then she is off again. Now you must test your 
wits against her instincts and see if you can find 
her nest. She may have secreted her eggs in a 
perfectly safe barrel, provided with straw and 
cunningly secluded in the shrubbery. She is likely, 
though, to go far afield and give you a merry chase. 
It is wise to take away the eggs each day until she 
has finished and wishes to sit. Then you may 
give her a nestful, fifteen to eighteen, or you can 
set the eggs under hens and when the turkey's 
broody spell is over she will lay again. 

Four weeks is the time required to hatch turkey 
eggs. Newly hatched turkeys are far from spry. 
They have no interest in food nor in the world about 
them. It is forty -eight hours or even longer before 
they begin to take notice. Hard-boiled eggs chopped 



184 OUTDOOR WORK 

fine is a good first meal for them. Some growers 
take a pint of sweet milk in a saucepan, let it come 
to a boil, and stir into it two eggs well beaten. This 
makes a sort of custard and this quantity is said 
to be enough for fifty new turkey chicks. Cottage 
cheese without salt is recommended. A dusting 
of black pepper in the food is good for week-old 
turkeys, especially in cool weather. 

Two deadly enemies of little turkeys are lice and 
wet. These are responsible for the high rate of 
mortality in flocks of all breeds. Keep them free 
from these by all known methods and with ordinary 
care in other details your profits are safe. If you 
tide over the first two months you will see the deli- 
cate chicks transformed into hardy little poults, 
holding their own with any kind of fowls. 

I don't know of any one who ever made a success 
of turkeys on a small lot. Their habit of ranging 
can be restrained to the extent of keeping them off 
the neighbours, but close cooping opposes their 
natural instincts. They are great insect eaters and 
will pick up a fair living away from the feed trough. 
It is best to train them by a regular evening feeding 
to roost at home. You will want to count them 
frequently, especially as November draws near and 
the price begins to soar. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 185 

There are a number of breeds in cultivation. The 
biggest and perhaps the hardiest is the bronze 
turkey. Some consider their flesh less delicate 
than that of the smaller kinds. There is always 
a good market for any size. If all your neighbours 
have bronze turkeys and the flocks are always getting 
mixed, why not try the buff or black or the white 
Holland? The latter are almost as beautiful an 
ornament to the country home as peacocks, and 
can be seen at a great distance because of their 
brilliant white plumage. 

If one wants to get enthusiastic over turkeys 
let him drive through a thrifty farming community in 
the fall and catch glimpses of the sunshine reflected 
from the burnished backs of the great flocks which 
ornament every farm yard. Or, if inclined to a meal 
of turkey, just inquire the price on the farm or in 
the market, and you will decide to raise some for 
your own use next year, and a few to sell. 

RAISING PEACOCKS 

We have it on the authority of the curator of 
birds of the New York Zoological Garden, Mr. C. 
William Beebe, that peafowls are not difficult to 
raise if the owner is watchful. Wouldn't it be a 
triumph to raise a family of these wonderful birds? 



186 OUTDOOR WORK 

Mr. Beebe says also that "peacocks are so common 
that we sometimes fail to appreciate their really 
wonderful colours." I wonder if that can be true. 
They were so uncommon in the Mississippi Valley 
when I was a child that I never saw one; it was less 
than ten years ago that I saw for the first time this 
regal bird spread his wonderful tail in the full sun- 
light. It was one of Mr. Beebe's own pets and I 
shall never forget nor fail to appreciate the sight. 

A peahen lays fewer eggs than most birds of her 
size. She will lay three times a year if you succeed 
in "changing her current of thought" when she is 
broody. She usually wishes to sit on the first six 
eggs and as she has pretty good judgment in placing 
her nest and is a patient and courageous mother, 
you had better trust her to bring up her family, 
unless you wish to raise the first lot under hens or 
turkey mothers. 

Like young turkeys, the little peachicks are very 
tender and susceptible to dampness. Woe unto 
them if the chill of an early May rain gets into their 
bones ! This is the time when watchfulness on the 
owner's part is necessary. 

For newly hatched peachicks a few meals of 
finely chopped, hard-boiled eggs and minced lettuce 
are right. As they develop appetites, feed some of 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 187 

the mixtures prepared for game, pheasants, etc. 
By all means let them have space to run in; a little 
coop is bad for their health. Make it twelve feet 
long at least. They will eat quantities of insects 
and will need feed only morning and evening after 
the first month or two. Corn, wheat, barley, and 
millet make a good mixture. 

No regular house is required for peafowls, though 
shelter must be provided against rain. They prefer 
to roost high, where the air is fresh and cool. Wind 
and cold weather they like. 

Indian peacocks cost twenty dollars to thirty 
dollars a pair. You can grow them for far less 
from eggs and sell the birds. They live to be twenty 
or thirty years old. 

If you are convinced that you want to try your 
hand at any of these kinds of fancy poultry, collect 
all the information you can first. Visit some suc- 
cessful poultry plant, ask questions, take notes. 
Get all the government and state experiment station 
bulletins available. Breeders often publish infor- 
mation about rearing birds. They are glad to help 
any one who is interested. It increases their bus- 
iness. Write to your agricultural college for infor- 
mation. They may not have a bulletin on the 
subject, but the men in their poultry department 



188 OUTDOOR WORK 

are glad to answer questions. Giving advice is 
part of their business and you can count on it 
being good advice. 

RAISING GEESE 

March is a good month to set goose eggs. As 
it takes them a Httle over a month to hatch, they 
will come out in April and the early birds catch the 
best prices. It is really surprising that more farm- 
er's boys and girls do not raise geese. They will 
*' board themselves" if given a chance at pasture, 
but need fattening with ground grain if held for 
Christmas trade. 

Goslings can be raised under hens, six eggs in a 
nest, but the goose is an admirable mother. Unlike 
most of his feathered kindred the gander is a true 
helpmate, often *' spelling" his mate during the 
sitting period and caring for the young afterward 
with great solicitude. 

Watchful care is needed to prevent the damp, 
cold April from getting the best of little goslings. 
They should begin their careers with a meal of 
bread crumbs, scalded meal, and hard-boiled eggs, 
chopped vegetable tops and grass included in the 
mash. They eat small quantities at a time, but need 
it frequently to stay their stomachs. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 189 

Water for drinking should be accessible, clean, and 
fresh always. Many a sick gosling can trace his 
disorder directly to the bad water. A large tub of 
water for bathing, too, is advisable for geese after 
they are feathered. 

Toulouse and Embden geese are tremendous 
creatures, even reaching the enormous weight of 
twenty -five pounds. Their meat is highly prized 
in European countries and is becoming popular in 
America so that a good market is assured. 

The business of fattening geese for market is quite 
specialized now. Men engaged in this business visit 
the farms where a few geese are kept and buy the 
eight-weeks old goslings for seventy-five cents to 
one dollar and a half apiece. If you can get this 
price your profit is fair and certain and your work 
ended. You can put your cash into some other 
business. Raising geese is a good summer vacation 
job. On a goose fattening farm near a good Eastern 
city market as many as fifteen or twenty thousand 
geese are fattening at one time. 

Geese on farms when I was a girl were kept prin- 
cipally for their feathers which found their way 
into the pillows and feather beds then used. The 
best pillows in my house are filled with the feathers 
plucked from geese with which I was personally 



190 OUTDOOR WORK 

acquainted. These feathers have a high market 
value, higher when you buy than when you sell 
to be sure, but you may be able to supply a local 
market and thus get a better price. Geese, like 
all the other feathered tribes, moult naturally in 
late summer. If the live geese are to be plucked, it 
should be done very carefully, three or four feathers 
at a time. The geese do not show evidence of 
minding much when they find that your designs are 
peaceable. Only the breast feathers and the smallest 
ones from the back are ordinarily taken for home 
use. Avoid the feathers with coarse stiff shafts. 
No down should be removed. Goose quills make 
good toothpicks, cleaned and scalded and trimmed 
into shape. Or they may be sold separately as 
feathers. 

Geese are plucked before sending to market. 
Most of the feathers and some of the down now 
extensively used by manufacturers of bed clothing 
comes from the marketed geese. 

RAISING DUCKS 

Probably in many neighbourhoods you would 
be laughed at if you tried to raise ducks without a 
pond or stream of water. It is not customary. 
True, if you have them for ornament principally. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 191 

they look best disporting themselves in what seems 
to be their natural element. But if you believe 
there is money in raising ducks for market, nothing 
is easier than to prove that the people who laughed 
were not up to date. 

You have heard the old saying on a very wet 
day, *'Good weather for ducks." Don't you believe 
it. If you go into duck raising you must be Just as 
careful about ducks getting wet as you are about 
your chicks. The duck must have plenty of water 
inside, all he will drink, but keep him dry outside. 
Little ducks are hardy if kept dry and warm. 
Even cold drinking water will give them cramps 
and should be avoided. The drinking vessels 
should be so covered that the duckling can get only 
the bill wet. 

The advantage of ducks over chicks is this : they 
do not bring quite so big a price per pound, but they 
grow so much faster during the first two months of 
their lives. Ducks should be marketed at eight to 
ten weeks old. At ten weeks old a good broiler will 
weigh about two pounds and will sell for seventy -five 
cents, but a duckling will weigh four to five pounds, 
which at twenty-five cents a pound will give you 
from one dollar to one dollar and twenty -five cents. 
The cost of feeding the two will be about the same. 



192 OUTDOOR WORK 

Ducks have other advantages over chickens. 
They are not nearly so subject to vermin, though 
lice sometimes attack their heads. They seem to 
thrive in confinement and cost less to house than 
chickens. Their feathers will bring a good 
price, and eggs of pure breeds for hatching are 
in demand. They are excellent layers, even better 
than some hens, as experience will show. If a 
duck lays nine dozen eggs at four dollars a dozen, 
and raises a family, she does a pretty good year's 
work, and is more profitable to keep than some 
cows. She eats grubs and insects, too, and grass 
and surplus from the vegetable garden. 

The commonest practice for beginners is to set 
duck eggs under hens in April and May. The 
biggest varieties are the best to raise as all are hardy, 
fast growers, and good layers. The eggs take about 
twenty-eight days to incubate. Treat the hen 
and nest for lice just as when sitting on hens' eggs. 

When ducklings are twenty -four hours old, they are 
ready for their first meal. Mashed potatoes mixed 
with meal of corn or oats and middlings are good for 
them. Milk, too, is excellent as for all fowls. Begin 
to stuff them immediately; you will find them quite 
agreeable. Green food of all kinds — grass, lettuce, 
cabbage, vegetable tops — all chopped small, fills 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 193 

them up and is good for them. Such things as 
turnips and potatoes should be cooked. Ground 
meat should be fed three times a week. Have the 
feeding troughs so arranged that they can get their 
shovels into it but cannot walk over the food and 
foul it ; same thing with the water. Feed four 
times a day. They must not get empty. Growth 
will not be rapid unless continuous. Grit should 
be supplied. 

On duck farms one hundred ducklings are kept in 
brooders five by seven feet, with yards five by six- 
teen feet. They are kept absolutely clean and dry. 
Those you keep over winter for next year's egg sup- 
ply should have access to a pond and grass. Old 
ducks do not bring high prices for table use and do 
not put on weight very fast. 

It was perhaps a young Boston housekeeper who 
asked when her market man offered her Pekin 
ducks for her table, "How are they esteemed?" 

He replied, "Oh, my wife, she don't never steam 
ducks. She just stuffs 'em like you would a chicken 
and bakes 'em." 

RAISING SQUABS FOR MARKET 

A few years' experience in raising fancy pigeons 
for pets is the best kind of training for a young man 



194 OUTDOOR WORK 

who wants to raise squabs for market. This bus- 
iness on a small scale ought not to take all one's 
time and can easily be combined with some other 
business or profession or with attending college. 
But your experience, varied though it may be, has 
not acquainted you with all that is worth knowing 
on the subject. The time has gone by when a man 
can afford to ignore books and bulletins even on a 
subject upon which he may himself be an authority. 
A library of pigeon literature will increase your 
wisdom. A practical man writing of his experience 
in your business may save you hundreds of dollars 
if you heed his advice. Don't scoff at college 
bulletins as your grandfather probably did. He 
had reason, but the bulletin is not what it was. 
Great strides forward have been made. Visit some 
big squab raiser's plant and take mental and written 
notes of significant facts observed. The colour 
of his pigeon loft does not affect the price he 
gets for his squabs, but the quality of the grain 
he feeds has a direct influence on the fullness of 
his wallet. 

Full-blooded homers are declared by many to 
be the best, all things considered, for table use. 
Good, mated birds of this variety can be bought 
for about two dollars a pair. They are hardy, bright. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 195 

active on their feet, and the squabs have a larger 
breast than some of the other sorts. 

Homers are not all the same colour; some are 
white, others black, reddish, and mixed colours. 
Good stock will rear six or eight pairs of squabs in a 
year, while some exceptionally good ones will raise ten 
pairs. If you make a clear profit of one dollar and 
twenty -five cents per year on an average from each 
pair you should do well. It is not profitable to keep 
birds which produce less than five pairs a year. A 
record must be kept in order to weed out worthless 
birds. You do not wish to spend your leisure run- 
ning a free boarding house for pigeons. You must 
know which are the big producers and keep only their 
young as breeders. Nests should be numbered and 
every bird have a leg label with a number cor- 
responding to a numbered description in your book 
of records. This is good economics. 

Squabs of homers should be ready for selling at 
four weeks old; they should be fully feathered but 
still in the nest. The heaviest grade weigh eight 
pounds per dozen and these bring highest market 
prices. Lighter birds are considered poor quality 
and bring a correspondingly low price. Prices 
vary from four dollars and fifty cents to one dollar 
and seventy-five cents per dozen. Dispose of pairs 



196 OUTDOOR WORK 

which habitually produce light-weight squabs as 
indicated by your records. 

Minute directions for killing and dressing squabs 
for market are given in Farmers' Bulletin No. 177, 
which every squab raiser should have in his library. 

There is, as yet, no indication of over-production in 
squab raising; although many more are grown every 
year, the demand is still on the increase. It is a 
good business for two people to go into together, 
a brother and sister, two brothers, or adjoining 
neighbours. 

Descriptions of house and furnishings, fly, foods 
and feeding, and details of care are given in Chapter 
IV under "Raising Fancy Pigeons.'* 

RAISING PHEASANTS 

The young people on a big ranch or estate with 
its up-to-date poultry plant, raising not only plain 
and fancy chickens, but pigeons, ducks, geese, turkeys, 
and guinea fowl, all attended by men hired for the 
purpose, may look about in vain for a chance to try 
their hands at raising anything with feathers. To 
such boys and girls I say, "Did you ever see any 
pheasants .''" 

"At the Zoological Gardens, yes." 

Aren't they beauties? How would you like to 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 197 

grow pheasants? There is a line that has not been 
overworked. Profit in it, too. Look at prices 
you must pay for birds and get an idea of how yours 
will sell later. 

Numerous experiments in pheasant growing 
have been tried in this country. It is well to know 
of these and to profit by them. Some men raise 
many varieties, importing them from every quarter 
of the globe. Their ideal is to have a complete 
collection. A visit to a large aviary will give you 
some idea of what a gorgeous family of birds the 
pheasants make. They are highly prized as game 
birds. In Germany they are served in a most sur- 
prising way. The edible parts are cooked and ar- 
ranged on a platter on a bed of parsley. At one end 
of the platter the cook puts the head with its beauti- 
ful neck ruff and at the other end the tail feathers. 
Imagine the waiter's triumphant entrance into the 
the dining-room, platter held aloft, and the pheas- 
ant's brilliant tail feathers streaming far behind 
like pennants from a mast top! 

The pheasant most easily grown in the United 
States is the ringneck or Mongolian pheasant im- 
ported from its home in China. There is hardly a 
state in the Union where no attempt has been made 
to raise pheasants. It is an industry that appeals 



198 OUTDOOR WORK 

to sportsmen everywhere. Massachusetts, Ohio, 
New York, Indiana, Illinois, California, New Jersey, 
and some other states have made pheasant rearing 
a part of the work of their Fish and Game Commis- 
sions. The state of Oregon is the only one where a 
remarkable success has been won. Evidently the 
climate and conditions there were ideal. About 
three dozen pheasants were set free in the Willam- 
ette Valley in eighteen hundred and eighty -one. So 
rapid was the increase that when the first open season 
of two and one half months was declared eleven years 
later it was estimated that fifty thousand birds were 
shot the first day ! They have continued to increase 
in that state and towards the north, and many other 
states get their supply for propagation from Oregon. 
The first thing to do after becoming interested 
in pheasants is to learn something about their nature 
and needs and to consider whether your conditions 
are such as would make the business possible or 
profitable. They are not domestic fowls but more 
like the jungle fowl from which, in all likelihood, 
our barn yard fowls are descended. But they can 
be raised in captivity if due regard is taken of their 
habits and characteristics. Books and bulletins 
are mentioned in the appendix of this book. In 
some respects pheasants are very like chickens, 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 199 

being especially susceptible to the diseases of the 
poultry yard. In England, pheasant rearing is 
quite common. One sees in open meadow land on 
great estates the tidy coops where anxious biddies 
cluck after their wayward foster children. It is a 
pretty sight to see the fifteen or twenty brown- 
striped birds scuttling wildly to her protecting wing 
at the approach of danger. 

Pheasants' eggs for shipping should be most 
carefully packed in cotton, hay, or excelsior to insure 
safety from jar. You do not have to begin with 
grown birds which cost five dollars a pair for ring- 
necks, as the eggs are best set under hens. The eggs 
should be set in late April or early May for best 
results. Bantams are often preferred, but any good 
mother will do if she is cleanly and not too clumsy. 
Great precautions should be taken that the nest 
be clean, and that the hen should have all the com- 
forts of home, e. g.., a dust bath, clean water, and 
regular feeding. Can you afford to run the risk of 
young chickens getting lice as soon as they are 
hatched.'^ Well, you simply can't take any chances 
with baby pheasants. Hens should be dusted three 
times during incubation with insect powder. Visit 
an aviary or a pheasantry if you can and ask ques- 
tions and take observations on how to make nests, 



200 OUTDOOR WORK 

coops, and pens. Study your books, too, and be 
guided by the experience of others. 

While you wait for your young pheasants to hatch 
there is plenty to do in preparing coops and learning 
what to feed them when they arrive. Much of our 
lack of success in rearing all sorts of wild game is 
because we know so little about what they eat. We 
probably make lots of mistakes with the animals we 
have domesticated but the more adaptable of them 
have grown accustomed to civilized food, and thrive. 

There could be no better place for a rearing ground 
for young pheasants than an orchard where clover 
abounds. Coops, like chicken coops, should be 
rain proof, well ventilated, bottomless, and so 
built that they can be closed to keep out vermin and 
to shut the chicks in when the grass is wet. 

Pheasants are omnivorous but they need more 
fresh animal food than is supplied by ordinary 
"chick mixtures," to balance their ration. Prob- 
ably they share with other young birds a relish for 
insects and while their mothers do not actually bring 
this food to the open bills of their young, they take 
the flock to the feeding ground and show them how 
to find worms, bugs, caterpillars, etc., by scratching. 
There are ways employed by experienced pheasant 
growers of raising a supply of meal worms, maggots. 



RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS 201 

and ant pupae for their flocks, but cheap, fresh meat 
ground very fine furnishes suitable animal food. 
During the first three or four days after feeding 
is begun a custard made of ten eggs to a quart of 
milk, baked well, is their best food. Hard-boiled 
eggs finely minced (put through a potato ricer), 
fine bread crumbs, and fresh vegetables cut into 
small bits can be given during the first week. Later, 
small grains of a great variety of kinds. A sprinkle 
of red pepper in their food during cold, damp days is 
good for half-grown chicks. The young pheasants 
must have access to fine grit and gravel and they 
must have fresh, cool water all the time. 

In building pens for pheasants we should take mto 
consideration their habits, their safety, and their 
lack of hardiness in domestication. Select the site 
for the pens after due thought. There must be 
both shade and sunshine. The soil should be well 
drained and rich enough to grow grass and clover. 
Each run should be at least ten feet by ten with net- 
ting of medium mesh for sides, eight feet high, cover 
of the same. A house is an unnecessary expense, as 
it is pheasant nature to stay in the open or seek a 
covert of brush. A rain proof shed, where they can 
retire when it rains, and where a dust bath will always 
be in readiness, is a necessity. 



202 OUTDOOR WORK 

Wild birds of prey evidently consider it perfectly 
legitimate to visit pheasant runs. Raccoons, foxes, 
rats, and mink, too, may work ruin there. The 
cover of netting protects from above and it may be 
necessary, where burrowing animals abound, to dig 
a trench a foot deep and set the netting down in 
the ground that far. A few steel traps set unbaited 
along the outside of the runs may prevent a serious 
loss and provide you with a handsome mink or 
raccoon fur skating or motoring cap. Severe cold, 
even storms, are not fatal to pheasants. Provide 
perches in the pen as well as in the shed and they 
will usually choose those in the open air. 

Because of their great timidity the birds should 
be disturbed as little as possible. Unfamiliar sights 
and sounds alarm and distress them. What a 
triumph it would be to induce your pheasants to 
eat from your hand! It can be done by exercising 
great patience, gentleness, and perseverance. 

All you know about chicken raising will be use- 
ful now. Make up your mind that everything that 
is bad for chicks is simply fatal to young pheasants; 
for instance, wet feet, lice, dirty, or sun-warmed water, 
over-feeding, wrong feeding. If you play this game 
you must expect a constant succession of hazards, of 
narrow escapes, and losses. But it is a noble game. 



IV 

RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 
SHETLAND PONIES 

THE perfect pet is the Shetland pony. This 
diminutive horse is a model of gentleness, 
patience, good-nature, and horse sense. 
One writer says of him: *'If more than eight children 
get on his back he will shake himself like a wet 
Newfoundland dog and then stand motionless, while 
they pick themselves up and out from among his 
four hoofs." So many generations of ponies have 
lived right in the family circles of their cold little 
island that children do not make them nervous. 

Is there a prettier sight than a well-groomed 
Shetland pony, a carriage made in Lilliput, and a 
small driver, and a reasonable number of little 
passengers of assorted sizes? A goat team is a joke, 
a dog team is impracticable, a team of young oxen 
is too plodding and lacks style. The pony outfit 
is charming and always delights everybody. But 

203 



204 OUTDOOR WORK 

who likes to see a grown man in a pony carriage? 
A small grown person may be necessary, especially 
if the baby is to be taken for a drive, but a full- 
sized adult makes a pony carriage look top heavy. 
The Shetland pony is a sort of *'boy horse" so 
far as work is concerned. (Some say, too, that he 
gets out of as much work as possible.) There is 
no better helper at light jobs than the pony. Like 
the vak: 

"He will carry and fetch 
You may ride on his back 
Or lead him about with a string." 

Indeed he will follow his master about without 
a string and can carry a good load. With a light 
cart or wagon suited to his build and a boy to do 
the rest, one of these hardy little fellows will be of 
greatest help in doing the endless odd jobs that 
always fall to the boy's lot. The pony will more 
than earn his board if the boy earns his. 

A thoroughbred Shetland pony should be less than 
forty-five inches high and weigh less than three 
hundred pounds. Many are raised in this country. 
A boy is lucky who has a chance to train a pony 
colt. Training should be begun early. One suc- 
cessful breeder says that his children do all the 
training of his ponies. His boy, seven years old. 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 205 

broke the first one they raised to drive to a little 
wagon. Little boys and girls under ten take entire 
care of the ponies in another man's herd. No doubt 
their father or mother oversees the work, but it is 
fun for the children to groom and feed and pet 
these wee horses. 

Breeding Shetland ponies is a very practical way 
to make a few hundred dollars a year. They eat 
less than full-sized horses and will keep fat on 
grass from frost till frost. The price of ponies is 
25 per cent, higher than it was five years ago. 
This makes the cost of going into this business 
higher, but the sales begin the second year and 
selling prices are higher, too. Shetlands are hardy 
and require shelter only in bitter cold weather. 
Ponies of various sorts are becoming far commoner 
here than formerly, so the demand is increasing. 
I wish every boy and every girl whose heart is set 
on having a pony could have one. Let us all raise 
ponies until there are enough for every one. 

RABBITS, GUINEA PIGS, AND CAVIES 

Rabbits, guinea pigs, and cavies are not poultry, 
yet there is always a department devoted to them 
in the great Poultry Show at Madison Square Gar- 
den in New York. It was there that I first made 



206 OUTDOOR WORK 

the acquaintance of these three kinds of popular 
pets. Many a boy has made a neat little addition 
in two figures, at least, to his college fund, by rais- 
ing hares, rabbits, guinea pigs, white rats, fancy 
mice, or cavies. Common white rabbits can be 
bought for one dollar a pair, but these days it is not 
uncommon for a breeder to pay from fifteen dollars 
to twenty -five dollars for wearers of blue ribbons. 
If you had guinea pigs for sale you would be glad 
that the best ones cannot be bought for less than 
ten dollars apiece. 

Rabbits are the most popular of these pets, while 
cavies come next. There is just now a great de- 
mand for cavies. They are odd little creatures, 
neither intelligent nor affectionate. Neither are 
they very hardy; in the North they have to be kept 
indoors in cold weather. 

Cavies are easy enough to feed, for they eat 
everything that is set before them, and keep at 
it all the time. All sorts of vegetables, bread and 
milk, and corn are the "chief of their diet." 

Before going into the business of raising any of 
these creatures it is well to consult some other boy 
who has had some experience and find out if there 
are any peculiar difiiculties he can help you provide 
for. Maybe your locality and conditions are better 



I 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 207 

fitted for one than the other. A dealer will often 
be able to give you valuable information about the 
different sorts of pets, and may be able to recom- 
mend the best book on the subject. 

FANCY PIGEONS 

If I were a boy or a girl to-day there is nothing 
I should so much like to do as to raise pigeons. 
Not that I think it an easy job. (Wouldn't you 
almost as soon work as to look for an easy job, 
anyhow .'') There are lots of disappointments, dis- 
couragements, and hard labour about pigeon rear- 
ing. But young folks with hobbies like this are get- 
ting more fun out of life than the idle ones. 

Pigeons are hardy, easily tamed, prolific, and can 
be made to pay their own way. It would be im- 
possible to associate with them, care for them, learn 
their nature and habits, without becoming thor- 
oughly interested in them. No pets could be more 
gentle, more beautiful, more docile than pigeons. 
Success in rearing them will not be immediate, but 
will come with experience. 

The business of raising fancy pigeons for pets is 
quite distinct from squab raising, treated in the 
chapter on poultry, and is far more likely to interest 
boys and girls. If you were to go to a big poultry 



208 OUTDOOR WORK 

show you would be bewildered at the number of 
breeds of fancy pigeons. The pouters, the tumblers, 
the barbs, the dragoons, nuns, helmets, the fan- 
tails, and carriers are all there in endless variety. 
What you like will be different from what I like, 
probably, so it is not easy to recommend. Be- 
ginners would do well to choose some one variety 
and try their hand at that before investing very 
extensively. The flying tumbler is recommended 
by many good authorities. These are not difficult 
to breed, are small eaters, do not need to be caged 
continually, and although they are to be had in 
nearly all the colours of the rainbow they are not 
very expensive. It is not good economy to buy 
cheap stock, in anything. Though by getting good 
ones you must start with a single pair, it is the best 
economy. Your increase will be very much more 
valuable. You should ask the breeder for a written 
guarantee that the pigeons are as represented, 
healthy, young, mated stock. If he does not care 
to give the guarantee, I should not consider him 
reliable. 

Pigeons are not much influenced by elaborate 
dovecotes. They are quite as happy living the 
simple life in a dry-goods box, provided it contains 
the conveniences they require, and is placed where 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 209 

the light will be plentiful, the air pure, and the roof 
rain proof. City boys and girls need not sigh and 
give up the idea because they have no place for 
pigeons. The attic or the 
roof serves them just as 
well as the barn yard, per- 
haps better, as mice and 
rats are less likely to dis- 
turb them on housetops. 
Every precaution should 
be taken however against 
these vermin. Cracks, doors 
and ventilators should be 
covered with fine wire net- 
ting. Even the entrances, 
holes six inches high by 
four in width, should be 
protected by tin guards 
which rats and mice can- 
not creep over. 

Each pair of pigeons will need two nesting com- 
partments. A good kind is described in Farmers' 
Bulletin No. 177, and is constructed as follows: 
Inch boards, twelve inches wide, with parallel cross 
cleats nailed on nine inches apart, are set upright 
full twelve inches apart against one wall, and se- 




Net for captur- 
ing pigeons 



210 OUTDOOR WORK 

curely fastened at top and bottom. Cut twelve- 
inch squares of inch boards for the bottoms of the 
nest boxes. It is easy to see how convenient these 
sHding bottoms will be to clean. Provide small 
earthenware dishes as nests, with a foundation of 
tobacco stems, to discourage lice. The birds will 
build nests of straw above the tobacco stems, 
the male bringing the material which the female 
arranges to suit her ideas of house furnishing. 




Pigeon roost 

Some growers use sawdust in the nest. If your 
pigeons are allowed their liberty with no shelter 
save the pigeon loft, perches will be needed inside. 
As the pigeon's feet are formed for perching on flat 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 211 

surfaces instead of on rounded branches like many 
of their feathered relatives, you should provide 
what suits their needs. A good form of perch is 
made as follows. Cut half-inch, dressed material 
four or five inches wide into five or six-inch lengths. 
Nail together two of these pieces in v-shape. This 
can be nailed to a square foundation piece and hung 
angle up on the wall of the loft. The slanting sides 
afford no lodging for droppings and as only one 
bird at a time can perch on so small a place, quarrel- 
ling is avoided. Iron brackets with perches attached 
are also used. 

Two nest dishes are provided for each pair, as 
very often the hen will lay a second pair of eggs 
before the earliest young ones are ready to leave 
the nest. The male pigeon is untiring in his de- 
votion to the young and their mother, taking his 
turn on the nest regularly during the seventeen 
days of incubation, doing his share of the work, and 
even beating his wife if she shows any disposition 
to slight her duties. 

If the pigeons are confined in a wire fly, perches 
should be provided there, and board walks for them 
to alight upon and walk about on should be placed 
at a distance of four or five feet from the ground. 
Nothing in the shape of roosts or cross pieces should 



212 



OUTDOOR WORK 







.g 

o 



.a 



a 



3 



<^^^^ 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 213 

be put in the fly, as the pigeons need all the space 
in which to exercise their wings. 

For one hundred birds the fly should be thirty- 
two feet long, eight feet high, and the entire width 
of the house. It will be a fine problem in practical 
arithmetic to figure how much netting will be re- 
quired to cover the frame of this fly, how many 
posts, and how much one by four-inch stuff will be 
needed to complete the frame. The advice of some 
one who has built a pigeon fly would be most valu- 
able to the inexperienced person, and the pictures 
in books, bulletins, and magazine articles will be 
helpful in making your plans. 

Holes, at least two, rounded at the top and six 
inches each way, provide for the going and coming 
of the birds between house and fly. For yourself, an 
outside door into the fly is a necessity, of course. 

Before installing your pigeons in their house, 
use the whitewash brush there freely. Into each 
gallon of your mixture of lime and water put a 
half-teaspoonful of crude carbolic acid. Clean sand 
is recommended for the floor of both fly and house. 
It is very bad practice to scatter food for pigeons 
on the floor or ground. You will see, if you try it, 
how much is wasted; any that they leave becomes 
soiled, moulds, or sours, and if eaten in that condition 



214 OUTDOOR WORK 

is nearly sure to injure the birds. A shallow feeding 
trough should be placed near the centre of the house. 
Fine charcoal, table salt, and cracked oyster shells 
should be kept permanently before the birds, the 
boxes cleaned out at least weekly. Clean water 
in stone or galvanized iron fountains should always 
be there, too. Daily or semi-daily is none too 
frequent to clean these vessels. 

Pigeons are not gluttonous feeders but "they want 
what they want, when they want it." In other 
words, regularity is important to their well-being. 
An early morning feed, six-thirty in summer, seven in 
winter, of equal parts cracked corn, wheat, and peas, 
and an afternoon feed, at four in summer, three in 
winter, of equal parts cracked corn (with no fine meal 
in it), kaffir corn, millet seed, and peas, is a fair ration. 
Pigeons like a variety but not as a steady diet. 
Hemp may be substituted for millet once or twice a 
week; a little broken rice, green vegetable food, 
like lettuce and onions, will be taken sparingly, 
and tiny bits of fat bacon seem to be acceptable. 
Nothing but first-class grain should ever be set 
before pigeons. The quantity needed should be 
determined by watching. If food is left in trough, 
feed less next time. 

Water for bathing is as necessary for pigeons as 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 215 

the dust bath is for hens. A broad galvanized iron 
pan three inches deep makes a first-rate bathtub. 
Although fancy plumbing is out of place in a pigeon 
house, it is the greatest convenience to have run- 
ning water passing through a trough constantly; 
this solves completely the problem of sanitary 
drinking water. 

The best fanciers clean their houses weekly. With 
a few birds this may not be necessary. But when 
your nose gives unmistakable evidence that it is 
time, do not put it off. A spade to scrape the floor, 
an old knife for the nest boxes, and a broom are 
necessary utensils. 

Mated birds will choose a nesting box after be- 
coming accustomed to their new quarters. The 
nest pans, with their foundation of tobacco stems 
cut in six-inch lengths, should be in place, and a 
supply of short hay or straw where it can be 
found. Two eggs are usually laid, with a day be- 
tween and sitting begins as soon as the second 
egg is laid. 

If the sight of a young squab does not make you 
sick of your choice of a hobby, you are a hopeless 
case, and I predict great success for you. Young 
robins are not beautiful to behold, but squabs are 
such ghastly looking little beasts, with nothing to 



216 OUTDOOR WORK 

recommend them except their entire helplessness. 
Evidently the parents are well satisfied with the 
appearance of their offspring which look just as 
they expected, no doubt, and begin almost imme- 
diately to feed them. "Pigeon milk" is injected 
into their open throats by the parent birds, in whose 
stomachs it has been manufactured. The squabs 
gain rapidly after a few days of this "milk" diet; 
pin-feathers replace the scanty yellow down in about 
a week. At three weeks they are able to walk, 
but are still fed by their parents, although grain is 
brought to them instead of the predigested food. 

Although they are hardy, do not suppose that pig- 
eons have no diseases. However, the author of 
a government bulletin on squab raising says that 
with "wholesome food, proper housing, and proper 
care, very little disease is usually encountered." To 
prevent disease, and avoid dampness in house and 
fly, keep the food and water untainted, and the 
house clean. 

It is very desirable, whether raising squabs for 
market or for pets, to keep a record of the per- 
formance of each pair. This is usually done by 
the use of numbered tags on the birds' legs. The 
record makes it possible to prevent inbreeding, gives 
you knowledge of whether certain pairs are profit- 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 217 

able, and keeps up your own interest far more 
than haphazard methods do. 

BANTAMS 

Almost every family that keeps chickens has two 
or three "banties" for the children. What an 
amusing sight it is to see a tiny fuss-budget clucking 
and bristling to protect a half-dozen lubberly Ply- 
mouth Rock "broilers" that she has been inveigled 
into rearing. But the raising of pigmy fowls is 
not confined to the child's play of the chicken yard. 
At the big poultry shows almost every breed of 
fowl from Brahma to Silkie has a diminutive mimic, 
and the requirements for the dwarfs are just as 
rigid as for the big fellows. 

To be just right a bantam ought not to weigh 
much over a pound, the cock should be impetuous, 
pugnacious, and haughty; the hen should be smaller 
than her lord, and meek in demeanour except when 
her flock is in danger. Bantams are very popular 
with amateurs who regard them as a sort of joke, 
but the poultry fanciers take them quite seriously. 
It is not unusual for the prize-winning bantams to 
bring as high prices as the heavy weights. 

Game bantams are great favourites with fanciers. 
They are easily recognized by their game-fowl 



218 OUTDOOR WORK 

characteristics: tall, upright carriage, oval body 
tapering from shoulder to tail, very long legs and 
neck, small head, and almost no show of comb. 
There are eight standard varieties in America, and 
the Game Bantam Club is interested in improving 
the breeds and increasing the popularity of the 
birds. 

As the varieties of bantams are pretty thoroughly 
mixed, it is no simple matter to breed birds fit for 
exhibition. But after all there is so much fun for 
boys and girls in growing any sort of pigmy 
chickens and such a good market for both eggs 
and pairs for pets that I wonder that more young 
people do not go into the business. Bantams take 
less room than ordinary chickens which is an ad- 
vantage on a small place. Care should be taken 
to save for setting eggs of none but the smallest 
and most perfect members of the flock, and to dis- 
pose of any which are larger than the standard or 
poor in shape or colour or in any characteristics 
peculiar to bantams. If you start with eggs of some 
fine breed, try to keep your stock pure, and improve 
it by selecting the best individuals for breeding. 

In matters of housing, feeding, cleanliness, and care, 
bantams should be treated just like other chickens. 
The young of some varieties are exceedingly delicate 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 219 

and cannot stand the least neglect. These are 
more like little wild things, partridges or quail, 
than like domestic fowls. Other varieties are as 
hardy as Plymouth Rocks, but any one who has tried 
it knows that raising Plymouth Rocks is no mere 
joke, especially in a cold, damp spring. 

If your father objects to your going into the ban- 
tam business instead of raising standard size fowls 
bring these arguments to bear upon him: Bantams 
occupy one fourth the space. Their food costs one 
fifth as much. Their eggs are two thirds as big. 
Pairs can easily be sold without expensive advertising. 

FANCY FOWLS 

If you want to make the neighbour boys open their 
eyes, and the passers-by stand still to admire, try 
the experiment of raising fancy fowls. Growing 
them for exhibition purposes is such a separate and 
distinct department of the poultry business and 
demands familiarity with many "show standards," 
"tricks of the trade," and special practices in breed- 
ing and grooming to bring a fowl up to a high score, 
that it may be best not to undertake to compete 
with more experienced breeders. 

A visit to a fancy poultry exhibition is like a trip 
to Wonderland. Just looking at the pictures of 



220 OUTDOOR WORK 

the prize winners, and studying the alluring ad- 
vertisements arouses enthusiasm. But to read the 
accounts of the fanciers, or to hear them talk about 
the merits of their favourites makes a chicken lover 
fairly thrill with ardour. How to decide upon which 
variety to try is a hard problem. Take a lot of things 
into consideration. Discount what the enthusiasts 
say about the one they have for sale; they mean every 
word of it, but they are prejudiced. Don't be in- 
fluenced to select one breed when you really prefer 
another. Here is a department where personal 
preference should cast the deciding vote; the one you 
like best is the best one for you. 

It is not well known except by specialists that there 
are so many distinct varieties in breeds of fowls. 
For example take the Polish. There are blue 
Polish, plain white, golden, white-crested, black, 
buff -laced, and silver; of the Hamburgs there are 
black, silver- and gold-spangled, silver- and golden- 
penciled white, and so on through the list. The 
Polish and the Houdans are remarkable for their 
tremendous top knots, the Hamburgs, Lakenvelders, 
and many others for their wonderful plumage and 
colour combinations, while the most astonishing 
creatures in the whole chicken tribe are the Yoka- 
hamas whose snow-white tail feathers trail gracefully 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 221 

behind them like a bride's gown and veil at a fashion- 
able wedding. These must be the originals of the 
extraordinary fowls represented on Japanese and 
Filipino pottery and embroidery. ; 

It is not much wonder that fancy breeds are 
growing more popular in our country. Although 
as a rule they are non-sitters, they are all described 
by their advocates as prize layers, some hens 
even reaching the remarkable record of two hundred 
eggs a year. 

The Hamburgs, for example, are called "Dutch 
Everlasting Layers." Their eggs are smooth and 
"satiny white"; Polish eggs are very large and snow- 
white, but they are not winter layers; Houdans 
lay white eggs of great size and almost certain fer- 
tility, and are, besides, excellent table fowls; the 
Lakenvelders rank with Leghorns as layers and their 
eggs are also "of a porcelain whiteness" which 
insures a fancy market in New York where the 
preference is for white eggs. 

Do not think that you can just as well house your 
fancy breeds in with your ordinary chickens. It 
is a mistake. They should be kept apart from the 
beginning. Light hens of commoner breeds are 
successfully employed as foster-mothers for the fancy 
fowls, but it is important to provide separate pens 



222 OUTDOOR WORK 

even for the young. If young chicks are kept in 
the same run with those somewhat older, they are 
crowded away from the feeding dishes; chicks with 
top knots should never be raised with other sorts. 
The crest interferes with their sight, and they are 
not fighters and will allow themselves to be driven 
away from the food. Crested chicks should be 
treated with a grease lice-destroyer at least once a 
fortnight. A little of the lard or sweet oil is enough 
but it should be worked into the feathers to be 
effectual. Use powder on the hens, but not while 
the chicks are oily. 

Making the neighbours gape in open-eyed as- 
tonishment is not all there is to raising fancy 
chickens. With a few years' experience in chicken 
raising back of you, it would not be risky to raise 
them for commercial purposes. The popularity 
of fancy chickens is just beginning in this country. 
There is a fine market for eggs for hatching, but as 
it is extremely important to keep the breeds pure 
your fancy birds should be kept by themselves 
practically the year round. Most of the breeds 
mentioned are quite hardy, and the same care re- 
quired for ordinary poultry as to housing, food, 
prevention of disease, cleanliness, and records will 
insure a good measure of success with fancy fowls. 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 223 

DOGS 

Raising dogs may prove a profitable business for 
any one who likes dogs, understands them, and is 
willing to doctor them when they are sick, and train 
them to good habits. An untrained dog is a nui- 
sance, however well bred he may be. 

To start a small kennel does not require any more 
room than to start in the chicken business in a 
small way. Just now the prices are so absurdly 
high on high-bred dogs of popular varieties that 
few but fanciers can afford to own the best stock. 
Why is it not better to raise some first-rate but not 
fashionable breed, and not enter into competition 
with men whose living depends on the number 
of blue ribbons they can win at dog shows? Buy 
a young female dog, teach her, and train her. 
Get experience with one dog and her young ones 
before you put in much capital. Find out by going 
to a good dog show what are the points of a good dog 
of your chosen breed, make out a score card, and 
mark your own dogs. Sell for pets those which do 
not come up to the mark. I have before me a 
balance sheet made out by a young man who began 
raising white English bull terriers in nineteen hundred 
and three. In spite of a lot of bad luck, which, with 
better arrangements, need not have happened, he 



224 OUTDOOR WORK 

netted nearly a hundred dollars the first year and over 
two hundred the second year. This young man kept 
chickens, too, beside his regular business which 
kept him at an office seven hours a day; and he 
found dogs better money makers than chickens. 

In raising puppies there are three important 
essentials: the right sort of food, fresh, clean water 
to drink, and exercise. I believe more dogs get 
sick from water or lack of it than from any other 
one cause. If a dog's dish is not clean enough 
for you to drink out of yourself, then it is not fit for 
your pups. Keep that in mind. Fresh air and 
sunshine are as necessary for puppies as for children. 
Kennels should be airy, face the south, and have 
shavings or straw bedding. 

Authorities differ about a dog's food. It is safe 
to feed him about as you would a growing boy. Like 
the boy he may overeat of his favourite dish. For 
breakfast, oatmeal or other cereal with milk and no 
sugar; for lunch, some dry dog biscuit or stale bread; 
for afternoon tea, soup or gravy thickened with 
boiled rice or corn mush. But a puppy's supper 
ought to be a good square meal because he is an 
outdoor sleeper, and it is easy for dogs to take cold 
on an empty stomach. For supper, then, give the 
puppies some bits of cooked meat, stale bread, and 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 225 

gravy or cooked vegetables. "Never feed a puppy 
hot bread or any rich, greasy, or highly seasoned 
foods. Avoid all sweets." Doesn't that sound like 
a book on what children should eat.'' But it is quoted 
right out of a dog book. 

If your dogs get sick, eczema, distemper, or fits, 
consult a veterinary surgeon. A good book on dogs 
and their care will be of greatest value to you for 
such minor troubles as dogs are heir to. 

Full-grown dogs do not need more than two meals 
a day. Most dogs are overfed, under exercised, 
and are therefore unhealthy beings. Dogs eat slowly 
and should not be hurried. They should be fed 
regularly but not fussed over. 

A word to boys and girls who own pets : if you live 
cooped up on a small lot you have no right to keep 
a dog, much less dogs. If you have a dog and let 
him run at large, you will probably lose him, and 
you deserve to. Nobody has any right, law or no 
law, to allow his live stock, let them be chickens, 
dogs, cats, or children, to annoy the neighbours. A dog 
or a cat, a rabbit, or a family of chickens can do more 
damage in a garden than anybody would believe, 
— except the gardener. Your dog may be worth 
ten dollars ; he may do ten dollars' worth of damage 
in ten different bulb beds in ten days. A thirty- 



226 OUTDOOR WORK 

cent cat can frighten away more birds in five days 
than an owner can attract to his garden in a whole 
season. Be fair to yourself, your neighbour, and 
your animals, and keep them on your own place. 
If you are out with your dogs, that is a different 
matter; if you have them trained "to heel," 
people will welcome you. 

GOLDFISH 

I have already said that the Shetland pony is 
the ideal pet. That is true still, but I should have 
said "for out of doors." Of all the candidates for 
the office of ideal indoor pet, I believe goldfish 
would get the most votes. 

They are peaceful and innocent, their needs are 
few, and their manners engaging. They are attrac- 
tive in colour, shape, and movements and never get 
under foot. Above all they have no bad habits. 
They neither squawk nor whistle, bark, sing, nor howl. 
They never stay out late nights, nor make trouble 
with the neighbours. They require a minimum 
of attention and a minimum of expense both for 
quarters and for food. For developing a sense of 
responsibility in children they serve a good purpose, 
and they can even be taught. It is very evident that 
they have memory as well as sight, hearing, sense of 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 227 

smell, touch, and taste. They easily learn, if patient- 
ly taught, to know their master's voice and to come 
when he signals. They will learn their feeding time 
and place and seem to enjoy attention. 

Just as with horses, dogs, or elephants, the first 
essential in teaching goldfish is to gain their con- 
fidence. This can only be done by patience and 
gentleness. A restless, nervous goldfish rushing from 
one side of the tank to another when any one ap- 
proaches tells its own story. Teased, frightened, 
neglected, and unhappy they are indeed in a sorry 
plight, for they are, even more than some other pets, 
utterly at the mercy of their owners. The sooner 
they die and pass into oblivion, the better! 

But what a pretty sight it is to see a well-balanced 
aquarium, water plants spreading their delicate 
fronds, a clean, pebbly bottom, and bright-coloured, 
healthy, happy, care-free goldfish glancing in and 
out in the sunshine. 

China is the greatest place for goldfish. Rear- 
ing them there has been reduced to a science. We 
find them running wild in our waters, but they are not 
native to America. Under ideal natural conditions 
they are said to live to be a hundred years old. 
Many are known to have lived to the age of ten years 
in one aquarium. 



228 OUTDOOR WORK 

Goldfish are hardy, Hve in sluggish streams or 
ponds, and eat all sorts of vegetable matter. They 
also eat soft-bodied insects, worms, and small fish, 
even their own spawn and young. 

For directions for keeping goldfish happy and 
healthy in an aquarium in the living room of your 
home, I must refer you to various books and articles 
on aquaria and on how to make and maintain them. 

Raising goldfish for profit is "a horse of quite 
another colour." Goldfish are sold by the thou- 
sand in department stores as well as in shops which 
deal wholly in pets. Some fish are imported, but 
the bulk of them are grown in this country. One of 
the most scientific growers in this country is Mr. 
Hugo Mulertt, whose book on the subject is quite 
enough to make its readers enthusiastic fish cul- 
turists. The best markets are in cities, and trans- 
portation is difficult and expensive. Fancy vari- 
eties would not be in demand except in large cities. 

One can begin goldfish growing in a small way at 
very small expense. Four tanks or reservoirs are 
required. Any boy who can make a hotbed frame 
can make these. They should be in a series: No. 
1, spawning pond; No. 2, rearing pond; No. 3, 
storage pond; No. 4, winter pond. 

Whether one makes artificial tanks or utilizes a 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 229 

natural valley, separated by little dams, it is essen- 
tial that the four ponds should be so fitted that they 
can be emptied at will. They should be sheltered 
from cold winds and from direct summer sun. 

The spawning pond should be built first, and 
furnished with water plants as much like nature as 
possible. Female fish ready to spawn can be bought 
from growers. These men are reliable and know how 
to advise you. It is to their advantage to increase 
the interest in goldfish. 

While building tank No. 2, keep watch for eggs 
in the spawning tank. Laying begins late in April 
or early in May outdoors. The egg is no bigger 
than a pinhead, yellow, or cream-coloured. Look 
for them on the plants. Snip the twigs off with great 
care and transfer the eggs, twigs and all, into large 
candy jars in clean water; one hundred eggs is enough 
for a gallon jar. Be careful that the water is of the 
same temperature in the jar as in the tank. Eggs 
should be kept not lower than sixty degrees Fahr., 
and not higher than ninety degrees Fahr. They hatch 
in two or three days or at most in less than a week. 
Do not disturb the water. Sudden changes of tem- 
perature will kill the young fish. 

When the fish are three days old, they are pretty 
lively and will soon begin to need other food than that 



230 OUTDOOR WORK 

supplied by the egg. To transfer them from the 
"incubator" to the rearing tank is a delicate opera- 
tion. Mr. Mulertt advises putting the tiny fish 
into a small, shallow, "nursery" tank first to make 
the change more gradual. The jar can be emptied 
very gently, fish and all, into this tank. 

Prepare the rearing tank, taking every precaution 
against enemies. It should be covered with a 
screen to keep the dragon flies from laying their 
eggs in the tank. Dragon fly nymphs are death 
on new-hatched goldfish. If the fish get a good start 
they will hold their own. Let me warn you again 
to take great precaution against chilling the fish. 
A few degrees difference may be fatal. When the 
fish are a week to ten days old, they should be about 
a half-inch long, darting swiftly about in the nur- 
sery tank. Be sure the temperature of the water 
is right, then set a wide-mouthed pail or jar full of 
water down in the tank with the fish, and dip the 
biggest one at a time with a little hand net of soft 
material. Do not crowd the fish in the transfer 
pail, but rather make more frequent trips. Ex- 
tremely delicate handling is absolutely necessary. 
Do not dip the fish out of the jar, but put it down 
in the water deep enough so they can swim out of 
their own accord. They are to stay a long time in 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 231 

the rearing pond so must not be crowded. In a 
tank covering an area of one hundred and sixty square 
feet, two hundred to three hundred fish can be reared. 
When they are only one half an inch long, the tank 
looks thinly settled, but they soon grow. 

The young are silver-gray at first. They usually 
get their permanent colour before reaching the age 
of two months. In warm ponds, in sunny weather, 
goldfish may grow to be six inches long in the first 
summer, but between two and three inches is more 
normal. 

Goldfish in outdoor rearing ponds do not require 
artificial feeding. Nature supplies them with their 
natural food. 

The storage tank is simply to keep the fish 
in while awaiting purchasers. It should be 
divided by partitions into small compartments. 
It is convenient to sort the fish taken from the 
rearing tank, so that those of one size or colour or 
variety can be separated and buyers can readily 
see the stock. It is easier to catch them in the 
small tank also. In the storage tank some feeding 
is usually needed. Fresh, dry bread crumbs are 
recommended by most fish growers; feed small 
amounts until they get used to it and until you know 
just how much they require. 



232 OUTDOOR WORK 

The winter pond costs the most to build. It 
should be three feet or more deep, lined with boards 
or cement, and located so that water will be moving 
through it, in and out slowly all winter, to prevent 
freezing. It should be covered during storms. 
Growers plan to get rid of their stock except breeders 
before winter sets in. One can dispense entire- 
ly with a winter tank if he can establish a house 
aquarium successfully for wintering the fish from 
which he expects to obtain spawn the following 
spring. 

As might be expected of animals which have for 
so many centuries been associated with man, gold- 
fish have a good many diseases. Their ill-health 
can almost invariably be traced to neglect or 
ignorance on the part of the person upon whom 
they are dependent. The signs of ill-health 
are usually quite noticeable. They are: Faded 
colours, bloody streaks, coated or inflamed fins, 
and swollen gill covers. Most of the troubles 
have to do with air supply. When a fish loses 
colour and appetite, has a slimy coating, and acts 
weak and dejected, it should be put into a "hospital" 
aquarium where plenty of plants are flourishing, at 
a temperature of seventy to eighty degrees Fahr. One 
teaspoonful of salt to each gallon of water will be 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 233 

good for the fish, but no food should be offered for 
several days. This remedy will usually restore the 
fish if its trouble is asphyxia or itch and has not gone 
too far. In the open water conditions right them- 
selves more readily, but fish acting queerly should be 
taken out from among the others. 

The greatest harm may result from hail storms and 
heavy rains on unprotected tanks. The natural 
enemies of goldfish inhabit the same ponds and to 
succeed one must daily wage war against crayfish, 
tadpoles, salamanders, snakes, fish-eating birds, 
muskrats, and aquatic insects. Toad and frog spawn 
found in goldfish ponds should be removed to some 
other pond to mature. These creatures are useful as 
destroyers of insects but you can dispense with them 
in goldfish tanks. 

THE STORY OF A BOy's ANIMAL CAGE 

Two years ago, when I was ten years old, my 
father built me a house for my animals. It is twenty 
feet square and ten feet high. The framework is 
of wood. The walls are covered with wire netting. 
In winter they are boarded in. Last winter we had 
a fire in a stove in the passageway, but we decided 
that the animals were better off without it. The 
pen cost about one hundred and fifty dollars. I 



234 OUTDOOR WORK 

keep in it three'coons, ten to thirty rabbits, and about 
twenty pigeons. Two 'coons, Tom and Jerry, I 
have had three years; the other one, Pauline, I have 
had two years. My oldest rabbits, Harry and Lily, 
I have had six years. The 'coon pens and the pas- 
sageway have wooden floors. The walls of the 'coon 
pen have double wire to prevent the 'coons from 
grabbing the other animals. Their pens go up 
to the roof of the house. The rabbit pens are sep- 
arated by movable wire panels six feet high. On 
this side of the house there is a second story for the 
rabbits and pigeons. This is reached by a step- 
ladder, and is divided by movable panels. The 
pigeons' house is over the passageway. There are 
shelves with nappies in them for nests. It is open 
at both ends in summer. I have kept crows and 
white rats; they were not a success. The crows 
killed the rabbits, and the rats smelled bad. 

I feed the rabbits morning and night and water 
them once. Their feed is oats in the morning and 
hay at night. They have from two to eight little 
ones in a litter. When they multiply too fast we 
eat them. Their meat is like chicken. The only 
way to distinguish it is by the bones. I feed and 
water the 'coons twice a day. They have a sort of 
cake made of corn meal. They grow very fat in 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 235 

the fall, but in the spring and summer they get 
very thin. They are not of any use except to look 
at. I did play with them until they bit my sister. 
Since then I have been timid about playing with 
them. I feed wheat to the pigeons once a day. I 
have tumblers and magpie pigeons. Both kinds 
are great fighters. I have four ducks, also, two 
Mallards and two Pekins. Their pen is outside 
of the rabbit pen. In summer I keep them shut up 
here. In coldest winter weather I keep them in the 
barn. The rest of the year they wander about as 
they please. They have a tub, which I keep filled 
with water, where they can bathe. I feed them corn. 
They are much more interesting pets than hens. 

A STORY OF SUCCESS WITH DOGS 

Some years ago two young women, one a book- 
keeper, the other a stenographer, decided to ex- 
change city for country life. Born and reared on 
farms, they secured seven acres of farm land, with 
cottage, but sixteen miles from Chicago, and started 
a chicken business. This did not prove entirely 
successful, mainly, as the now prosperous farmers 
admit, because of ignorance and inexperience. 

Meantime the fine collie dog, kept as guard and 
companion, was bringing many requests for good 



236 OUTDOOR WORK 

puppies, and it was determined to raise collies 
instead of chickens. So Daisy Rightaway, an 
English champion, was purchased, later being 
joined by imported Master Clinker, son of the 
famous Wishaw Clinker, which was brought from 
England about three years ago by J. Pierpont 
Morgan at a fabulous price. Warned by the 
trying chicken experience, Miss Porter, who con- 
ducts the farm while Miss Benson retains her 
business position and looks after the "city end" 
of affairs, resolved to "make haste slowly" in the 
new direction. Few, but good, animals were chosen, 
only the best of the young stock was placed on the 
market, and if the farm books at first showed but 
small profits, the upward trend, both in cash and 
reputation, was gratifyingly steady. With less than 
four years of professional dog rearing behind them, 
and with all buildings, runs, etc., originally lacking, 
the pleased proprietors of "Sylvan Farm" rejoice 
in promising financial statistics for the last half of 
that time. 

About two years ago came, apparently by chance, 
that branch of the business which has, perhaps, 
proved most lucrative, and which is especially 
worthy of note by other women with country homes, 
love for and some knowledge of dogs, and a desire to 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 237 

make money. A friend who owned fine collies 
envied the splendid environment under which the 
"Sylvan" canines flourished, and asked permission 
to board some of his young puppies with "Porter 
and Benson," to give the young women their official 
title. The dogs sent thrived remarkably, and he 
mentioned the matter to other dog fanciers, and they 
to still others. Almost without knowing how it hap- 
pened, the delighted farmers soon found themselves 
caring regularly for from forty to seventy -five 
well bred dogs. 

Only collies were at first accepted, but business 
and accommodations alike gradually widened until 
practically all kinds of dogs are now handled, in a 
most progressive and hygienic manner. An iso- 
lation house for dogs when first received or suspected 
of illness ; heated homes for young mothers, puppies, 
and lapdogs; winter houses, with shelters for open- 
air exercise in bad weather; commodious separate 
runs — these are among the conveniences now en- 
joyed by the happy "visitors" whose owners are 
off for the summer or winter or are otherwise unable 
to care for their cherished pets. The Desplaines 
River runs by the farm and a picturesque "river 
run" is much appreciated by water dogs and those 
enjoying an occasional frolic in cool water. Two 



238 OUTDOOR WORK 

fine cows provide fresh milk in abundance for the 
nursing mothers and young puppies. Every dog, 
whether boarder or family resident, is personally 
and intimately known to Miss Porter, who takes sole 
care of them with the aid of an 'intelligent boy to 
perform the rougher tasks. 

Five dollars monthly is charged for the board 
of healthy dogs, with special rates for those needing 
special care. The standard dietary, varied to suit 
individual and class needs and varying occasions, 
is composed of soup made of meat and vegetables, 
meat jelly, rice, plenty of bones, and dog biscuit, 
with warm milk every two hours for the young 
mothers and puppies. The other dogs are fed twice 
daily — to the minute. In this incessant, indis- 
pensable care is found the chief drawback of the 
business for those fond of personal freedom, since 
the important duties of feeding, inspection, etc., 
seldom can be delegated to those not personally 
interested in the dogs. 

The little farm provides all the vegetables 
needed and some corn, but all other food supplies 
must be purchased. With more ground the 
recurring feed bills might be made smaller, but 
the labour outlay would be correspondingly 
augmented. Eliminating unnecessary details, the 



RAISING ANIMALS FOR PETS 239 

financial situation for the two years in which 
the dog experiment has been successfully running 
stands thus: 

EXPENDED 

Stock, buildings, and fences $785 

Miscellaneous expenses, labour, etc 286 

Feed 815 

Cash on hand 716 

Total $2,602 

RECEIVED 

Original investment $400 

Sale of puppies 990 

Board of dogs 1,212 

Total $2,602 

The balance of seven hundred and sixteen dollars 
does not represent a bad profit in less than three 
years made from an investment of four hundred 
dollars, and while the young farmers feel that per- 
haps in other lines of work such increase might 
have been more quickly and easily acquired, they 
feel that perhaps in no other field could they have 
received such high dividends of health, happiness, 
and independence. The work is hard but enjoy- 
able, while its widening scope and success bring true 
satisfaction. Sylvan Farm now receives dogs from, 



240 OUTDOOR WORK 

and sends dogs to, all parts of the United States, 
and the *'farm family" of high-bred animals from 
time to time receives judicious addition. Some 
famous canines have been raised, welcomed, and 
boarded, and one young puppy, born on the place, 
recently sold for one thousand dollars. 



WORK AND PLAY WITH TRAINED ANIMALS 
DAIRY COWS 

IF THE boys and girls of the farms are looking 
about for a big thing to do, the very best 
place for them to look is at their father's herd 
of cows. Even if it isn't a strictly dairy herd it is 
kept partly for dairy purposes. Every cow demands 
stabling, pasture, feed, and attention. She is sup- 
posed to give value received for all this. But how 
many cow owners know which cows pay their 
board with a bonus, which barely keep even, and 
which are eating their heads off ? The margin of 
profit when feed is high is too small to risk feeding 
an unproductive animal. 

If your father has not been in the habit of 
keeping accounts with his cows, you can make him 
open his eyes. You do not need ledgers and day- 
books for your simple statement of facts. Bring 
every animal face to face with her record. On one 
side of the account put the cost of what you 

241 



242 OUTDOOR WORK 

give each cow. On the other side what she gives 
in return. You will have a page like this: 

Roberta Grade Holstein 6 years 

DEBIT 

To feed (at prices you would have to pay if you 

bought it) $ 

To stabling, estimate $ 

To care (so much an hour) $ 

CREDIT 

To milk, so many qts. at so much $ 

To calf $ 

To compost $ 

You will have to reduce the item "feed" to 
many items, and remember that hay produced at 
home is not free hay. It is worth to feed to Roberta 
just what you would have to pay wholesale for it if 
you had to go to the feed store, minus the cost of 
cartage. To work this out is good arithmetic, better 
than covering acres of blackboard space with ex- 
amples in "partial payments." Now Roberta may 
give a good quantity of milk but of poor quality. 
At first you might think that didn't matter; it 
brings just as much a quart. But does it, when 
your mother and sisters make it into butter, for 
example .5^ Or, if you sell cream, wouldn't you want 



TRAINED ANIMALS 243 

a cow whose milk tested high in butter fat? Your 
customers would, whether they bought milk or 
cream, I know. 

The boys and girls in many of the great dairying 
states, notably Illinois and Wisconsin and New 
York, are learning in school how to test milk for 
the butter fat it contains and the chances are 
that every agricultural college in the United 
States is ready to instruct boys and girls by letter 
in this important part of dairying. Many of 
them send out printed lessons giving careful 
directions about using the Babcock testing 
apparatus, and I have seen a class of boys and 
girls in a country school testing milk from their 
fathers' cows. 

It is astonishing how many cows are kept on 
farms purely for ornament — or maybe to give 
the boys plenty of chores. These cows consume 
as much food as good ones, but they are idlers. 
It isn't their fault but the farmer's. Can your 
father or you afford to keep money invested 
in any cow that returns him less than a dollar a 
year over and above the expense of feed? A good 
cow may cost twice as much to buy, but a good 
cow will make thirty or forty dollars a year clear 
gain. These figures are not guess-work but facts. 



244 OUTDOOR WORK 

So I say again to the farm boy and girl — if you 
want to do a big thing for your home place and 
for the neighbourhood, reform the dairy herd. 
Keep a record for every cow. Weigh the milk of 
each one separately every day for a week, then again 
two months later, and so on through her milking 
days. Take an average of all these weights as the 
weekly weight of milk and multiply by the number 
of weeks the cow gave milk. This will give the 
total number of pounds produced. Learn how to 
test for butter fat. Your neighbourhood creamery 
tests the milk with a Babcock test and you can 
learn how. Persuade your father to sell all the 
cows which fall below a fair standard and buy good 
ones. Test the milk of the cows he thinks of 
buying. A poor cow often looks as well as a good 
one. The Illinois Experiment Station shows by 
tests that twenty-five of the best cows in the 
state produce as much butter fat as ten hundred and 
twenty-one of the poorest cows, while eating only 
one fortieth as much food, to say nothing of the 
stable room, the time spent in milking, etc. And a 
quarter of the million cows in the state of Illinois are 
making their owners only seventy-seven cents a year 
apiece. Can your father afford to keep that kind 
of a cow? 



: TRAINED ANIMALS 245 

CLEAN HOME MILK 

I know what milking is on the farm. Take 
it on a frosty October morning about sun-up, 
when you make the cow get up from her bed 
so that you can stand in the "warm spot" to 
warm your feet. It gets no better from that time 
on, even if you do milk in the cow stable. But 
the boys that do the milking do not realize 
how perfectly filthy the milk often is when it gets 
to the house. 

Take a milk pail from the shelf, go down to the 
cow barn. There is the cow. Throw her down an 
armful of hay to chew on while you milk, brush 
off the stool, rub off the cow's bag with a wisp 
of hay if she is especially dirty, never mind your 
hands or the open pail, throw a stream of milk 
onto each palm and begin. Is there a little hay and 
dust in the pail? Never mind; it will strain out. 
When you get through, set the pail down while you 
drive the cows out to pasture. To be sure, they will 
raise a lot of cow-stable dust and the smell is pretty 
bad in there, but if you set it outside the pigs would 
get into it. It is nearly school time and you have 
other chores to do. Take it to the house and 
strain it. Mother always doubles the strainer cloth, 
but it takes an awful time for it to run through that 



246 OUTDOOR WORK 

way. There, you said the dirt would strain out, 
and look at it there in the cloth! 

This is a cold-hearted picture of one of the chores 
the farm boy particularly hates. Compare each item 
with your own methods and improve on each. Home 
milk is not always clean milk. 

The boy that milks ought to do a better job than 
this. He ought to bring clean milk into the 
house. How shall he do it? A clean place to 

milk, a clean cow, a clean 
boy, and a sanitary milk 
pail; these four things are 
within the reach of every 
farm that can afford a cow. 
I have seen a good many 
patent milk pails, mostly 
in stores, seldom on farms. 
The sanitary milk pails 
■ Iceej) the dirt out, they 
Sanitary milk pail dou't strain it out. Here 

is one described by the man who invented it 
for his own use. This pail is tin, holds ten quarts 
or so. On one side is a spout two and a half inches 
in diameter and three inches long. The spout 
has a tin cover like a baking powder can cover. 
To keep the dirt out of the top of the pail the man 




iiTRAINED ANIMALS* 247 

bought a tin pan, just the size to fit tight into the 
top of the pail. Just above the bottom of the pan 
on one side he had a tinner cut eight or ten small 
holes, like a collander. Scald the pail, double the 
strainer cloth and lay it across the top of the pail. 
Press the pan down on the cloth till it goes down 
into the pail tight, taking care that the edge of the 
cloth comes up all round. Do all this at the house. 
With this pail, a clean milker can milk a clean cow 
in a sweet smelling place, and get clean milk. This 
may look like a pound of prevention, but think of 
the tons of cure it will save. 

MARKETING MILK 

There are lots of boys delivering milk in towns 
and cities. Most of them do their part well. But 
I belive they would like to do it better. Driving 
from one house to another is pretty dull business 
for a live boy and unless he has something to think 
about his mind wanders. Why not put some 
thought on the very business he is engaged in? 
Does he know what milk is? That children's lives 
depend upon the care he gives it? Does he know that 
dirt in ice and dust from streets may be deadly if 
they get into milk? If dust gets into that little 
puddle that ought not to be on top of the bottles 



248 OUTDOOR WORK 

does he wipe it off with a dirty rag, ignorant of the 
danger? If he thought of these things and studied 
out ingenious ways of keeping his bottles free from 
dust, life would no longer be dull but interesting. 
He would be well started toward good citizenship. 

TRAINING PET ANIMALS 

Trained pets have a greater market value than 
those which have no education. Parrots, for ex- 
ample, with nothing but their native harsh squawk, 
can be bought for very little. But every word 
added to Polly's vocabulary can be expressed in 
dimes added to her price. There are very few do- 
mesticated or tamed animals so lacking in wit that 
they cannot be taught. But it takes a particular 
kind of patience and persistence. 

Some animals learn very quickly; mice for in- 
stance. One trainer has taught them to walk the 
tight rope, climb ladders, swing in a trapeze, pull 
tiny wagons, and do other little tricks. 

We have all seen trained animals in shows and 
have marvelled at them. It is hard to believe 
that they are real. It takes genius to train fleas, 
for example, or geese, yet these animals are tamed. 
Every boy has a little spark of such genius and 
with use the spark would grow. 



TRAINED ANIMALS 249 

Dogs are about the easiest animals to train. 
Teach a dog first to obey. He must learn to under- 
stand just as a baby does. How long does it take 
a baby to learn what "no, no" means? A bright 
dog will learn to "charge" about as quickly. When 
he knows what you mean and that you really do 
mean it and are not fooling, he will suit the action 
to the word or signal. A little training every day 
will do the business. Rewards in the form of food 
or caresses appeal to the dog's understanding. 
Never forget to give the reward. You may some- 
times have to punish a dog, but you should be 
careful to make certain that he associates the pun- 
ishment with the crime. Whipping a dog to '*get 
even" with him is not the way to make him a good 
dog. He may take his chance to "get even" some 
day. Do you blame him ? 

Most children expect a dog to learn too fast. 
For instance, a boy wants his dog to draw a wagon 
or sled. The dog is big and strong and there are 
leaves to be gathered or kindling to be brought in. 
Don't make a harness, force it onto the dog, hitch 
him up regardless of his protests, and expect him to 
trot off like a pony. Ponies are trained to the feel 
of the harness from their youth up. Your dog will 
rebel, not angrily, but none the less emphatically. 



250 OUTDOOR WORK 

He will lie down or slip the harness or otherwise 
rid himself of the burden. Or he will balk. Train 
him gradually, just as you would a colt or calf. 
He will learn faster than either. • , 

Dogs are sometimes trained to carry baskets 
or bundles and can even be trusted to go on errands 
alone, if, by going over the same route daily, their 
minds are impressed sufficiently. 

Training a dog should begin in puppyhood. 
Make commands in single words and accompany 
the word with a sign. Use always the same easily 
interpreted sign with the command word. Teach 
him his name first, then to come when called. 
After these commands are thoroughly learned, teach 
him to come "to heel," *' charge," and similar com- 
mands. A poor teacher will make a poor dog, so 
teach yourself patience. Your voice should be firm 
but never loud or high-pitched. 

A young dog will learn to herd cattle, sheep, or 
goats more easily from an old dog than from you. 
He will follow his leader at first, then later he can 
go on ahead driving the herd on his own re- 
sponsibility or in obedience to a command. 

Did you try to teach your dog to retrieve by 
ducking him? How silly! How soon would you 
learn to swim by that method? Begin by letting 



TRAINED ANIMALS 251 

him think he is bringing you his play -ball, although 
really you are pulling it by an attached string. 
Insist on his giving up the ball every time. Do it 
again and again till he is out of the primer class. 
Throw the ball a few feet at first, then farther and 
farther away till he has that trick "down fine." 

When the water is well warmed by the spring 
sunshine, take him to the shore and repeat the same 
lessons patiently, a little each day. If you have an 
old retriever with you the youngster will be ambi- 
tious to "go him one better" and will learn more 
quickly. 

It is necessary in training dogs to consider the 
inborn instincts of the breed. A terrier is a "nat'ral 
ratter" and needs little training for that, but you 
would have to train a long time to get a spaniel to 
catch rats. 

A dog on the farm can be trained to save the boys 
a lot of steps. We had a shepherd dog once which 
was a famous runner. When my father suspected 
that the cattle were breaking into the cornfield, 
he would go first to the top of the knoll by the house, 
hold Nimp up in his arms, point in the direction of 
the cows. Nimp would whimper and squirm and 
when let down was off like a streak of brown light- 
ning. He would not go in a bee-line, but followed 



252 OUTDOOR WORK 

first the road, then the line fence to where the 
marauding cattle were at work. By the time my 
father or one of the boys on horseback reached the 
break in the fence the fleet-footed dog would be 
hustling those cows. If he didn't actually get them 
back into pasture he kept them moving so that 
they got no more green corn than was good for them. 
"Good old dog" was all Nimp expected for little 
deeds of kindness like this. He wagged his head, 
hung out his long pink tongue, and almost smiled 
with satisfaction. There was no doubt that he was 
pleased with having outwitted the cows, for which 
he had small respect. 

Teaching a collie to herd sheep or goats is a 
special sort of business; experienced shepherds can 
teach you how it is done. Training hunting dogs is 
also a work for experts. Anybody knows that a 
poorly trained dog makes the difference between 
real sport and disgusting failure. A young man 
with a real aptitude for training dogs for various 
forms of hunting can find opportunities to turn this 
genius into cash. 

TRAINING YOUNG HORSES 

"Breaking colts" is a phrase handed down to 
us, I think, from the days way back when our pio- 



TRAINED ANIMALS 253 

neer ancestors used to go out and catch a wild horse 
and break it to saddle and harness. On ranches 
where colts range over vast areas and never get 
acquainted with human beings except at branding 
time, it is little wonder that they must be broken. 
They do a little breaking on their own account, too. 
But on the small farm where three or four colts 
a year or fewer are raised, no colt should need to be 
"broken." All should be trained, which is one way 
of saying taught or educated. 

Everything depends upon the colt's learning each 
thing right first. If you put an old, worn strap on 
him, or a fraying rope which he can break, he will 
just as likely as not become a halter and bridle 
breaker. 

A little colt starts out without any habits. All 
the bad ones as well as all the good ones are learned. 
Every bad habit harks right back to some mistake. 
You can manufacture balky horses by overloading 
a wagon for your team of colts. I have seen boys 
tease a colt "just to see him kick." That strikes 
me as lacking in "horse sense." 

Every time you go out with your father to visit 
the two-year-olds and the yearlings, be sure that 
you pet and caress them. Don't attempt to mount 
one till you have accustomed him to the feel of a 



254 OUTDOOR WORK 

burden on his back, a very small weight first, then 
the saddle of an old harness, then a very light saddle. 
Don't act as if you were in desperate need of a saddle 
horse. His training cannot all be done in one 
visit. A yearling must be taught to lead, then 
to be driven. 

After a two-year old has been accustomed to the 
feel of a harness, one part at a time, he can safely 
be hitched with some old stager to a light wagon, 
and taught what pulling means. He should already 
know that a pull on the right rein means "gee" 
and on the left means "haw"; never give the com- 
mand "whoa" to a colt, unless you have the muscle 
to make your command good. A runaway may 
not break any harness, nor any vehicle, nor any 
bones, this time, but a runaway horse is an ill- 
trained horse. 

It is almost an impossible thing to train an old, 
high-spirited horse to regard an automobile or a 
trolley car with anything but disfavour. A young 
horse can learn easily. Soon after a colt is well 
"halter-broke" he should be led around where the 
farm machinery is at work. He must be held with 
a strong hand and not be allowed to bolt when the 
mowing machine starts. Break the automobile 
to him gently. Lead him up to a quiet one. Have 



TRAINED ANIMALS 255 

a bit of his favourite dainty to offer him from the 
seat and see to it that he is convinced that the 
automobile is harmless. (Would that it were true!) 
Speak reassuringly to him. If he jerks back, don't 
get mad and whack him, just to vent your impa- 
tience. He will associate your whack with the 
automobile, and you will have your work to do over 
again. I have known of a colt being made "trolley- 
wise" in an hour and he never has forgotten; he 
, would no more shy when one whirls by than he 
would at his own mother hitched to a load of hay. 

TREADMILLS AND CRANKS 

How a boy does hate the sight of a crank. Turn- 
ing the grindstone, running the washing machine 
and churning are part of a country boy's daily life. 
He may do these things cheerfully, because he knows 
they are boys' jobs or because he hates to see his 
mother doing them even worse than he hates doing 
them himself. But that doesn't prove that the 
boy's tastes run to crank turning. 

Why not train a dog or a sheep to turn the crank .^ 
That's a scheme. It's fun to train an animal and then 
it will be more fun to see him do the work while 
you read a book and watch him. 

Here is a picture of a big wheel from which a 



256 OUTDOOR WORK 

belt runs to a grindstone out under a tree. In the 
wheel stands a good dog; by his bright eyes, his erect 
carriage, and the "near-smile" on his face, you can 
see that he is no brow-beaten labourer. A man at 
the grindstone holds the axe and the wheel is ready 
to turn. This fine dog knows that a certain signal 
means work. He does not skulk off and hide, nor 
yawn and look limp. He steps up into the wheel, 
waits for the signal, then begins a steady tread. 
On Mondays he does the washing, on Tuesdays 
and Fridays he churns, on other days he helps 
grind the axe, the sickle, the scythe, or the butcher 
knife. When the job is done, at a well-known 
signal, the dog stops, steps off the wheel, and waits 
for the kindly pat of his mistress or the "Good old 
fellow" of his master. 

MAKING ANIMALS HAPPY 

In training any domestic animal you will find 
their greatest weakness is fear, just as with wild 
animals. You do not want to develop this but to 
win their confidence. With horses taken right 
from the range or wild, the men who are most suc- 
cessful are those who train by kindness. A horse 
whose spirit is broken and who does his task because 
he is afraid not to is not a safe horse. I wouldn't 



TRAINED ANIMALS 257 

trust him in an emergency. A horse who lives in 
a state of fear has very Httle sense. 

One blow, yell, jerk, or even a threatening motion 
will often obliterate all the work you have done. 
So the animal trainer must not lose his temper, 
especially with dogs and horses. The more intelli- 
gent the animal, the more kindness and gentleness 
are required. On one farm, you will see the calves 
trembling when coming for their food, trying to keep 
one eye out for sudden blows while drinking; the 
horses jerking timidly up as if expecting their 
tender mouths to be yanked; the cows kicking the 
milkers; the colts hard to toll in from pastures; the 
dog with tail between his legs; the cat on her way 
up a tree. Do you know the owners of such 
animals? How are the boys of the family liked in 
the neighbourhood? Are the girls popular and 
good-natured? Has the mother the sweet and 
patient look that the best mothers have ? 

Every domestic animal ought to be kept happy. 
A happy hen will lay eggs, a happy cat will purr and 
rub your leg in passing, not because she wants 
anything out of you, but because she thinks you are 
a good fellow and that's her way of expressing her- 
self; she will catch mice for you, too. A happy cow 
will give down her milk; a happy pig will lay on fat 



258 OUTDOOR WORK 

faster than a miserable one, a happy horse will 
almost trot at the plough. So really it pays to 
keep animals happy. Having creature comforts 
alone is not enough for most animals. They like 
attention, caresses, and even seem to enjoy and under- 
stand conversation. 

Boys that train animals will find that the animals 
train them. If you have a hot temper and can keep 
it in enough to train a dog to draw a wagon, you 
will find it isn't so hard to hold in when you are 
playing ball. Self-control is one of the biggest 
things in life. 

The training of a calf or colt should begin early, 
just as with other animals. If the animal has never 
been frightened the task is easy. Begin gradually. 
Petting for a day or two will get him used to being 
handled. A rope may be knotted round his neck 
and worn for a day or two, or a rope halter put over 
the head; something that slips on easily so that 
you don*t have to hold the youngster's head. 
When he is accustomed to the feel of the halter, you 
can lead him to his food without his realizing it. 
Unconsciously he gets used to the pull on the rope. 

A pair of well-matched oxen, trained by kindness, 
taught to "gee" and "haw" at the word without 
reins or goad, with no bad habits like kicking or 



TRAINED ANIMALS 259 

turning in the yoke, are worth between two and three 
hundred dollars. They started out worth four or 
five dollars a head for veal. Training and grass 
have done most of the rest. If trained in kindness, 
they are docile, gentle, industrious, and though 
less spirited than horses, they are also steadier and 
far better suited to many heavy farm tasks than 
horses. The harness for oxen is very simple, costs 
little, and seldom needs mending. 

Every county fair ought to offer prizes for ani- 
mals trained by boys and girls. I believe boys 
train animals more often than girls do. I wonder 
how that comes. Practise on the hens, girls, and 
on the cat. I know of a cat which picks up nuts 
and puts them in a basket quite as a child might. 
This cat treads a wheel, too, to turn the churn. 

If all the animals were happy and earned their 
living, helping do the work, as well as reproducing 
their kind, farm life would be less dreary and hard- 
ships would seem less hard and the country would 
be a better place to live in. 

TAMING WILD ANIMALS 

All little children are interested in animals. It 
does not take much argument to convince a boy 
that he needs a dog or the girl that she needs a 



260 OUTDOOR WORK 

canary bird. If, as they grow older, they seem to 
lose their pleasure in the companionship of animals, 
it means that something is wrong. Probably 
home conditions are such that an intimate acquain- 
tance with any animal is inconvenient or else some 
unnatural lessons in natural history have been 
forced upon the children at school and their interest 
in the real things has been deadened. I have heard 
many boys and girls say that they dislike zoology. 
Take these same boys and girls out on an excursion, 
with an opera glass or with an insect net, or show 
them a rabbit's tracks in the new snow, and who will 
say they are not awake and interested .'^ 

The first thing you want to know about an animal 
is its name. The same is true of a new neighbour 
or a new schoolmate. The name does not tell you 
much about the animal or the boy. When you 
know them better you will give them names that 
fit. The new boy's name may be Reginald. When 
the boys get to know him they may call him "Piggy, " 
or "Chief," depending on what kind of a boy he is. 
But a name is a great convenience. 

Next after the name you want to know where he 
lives, how he lives, and above all what he can do. 
After all "what he can do" is the boy, and the same 
is true of other animals. 



TRAINED ANIMALS 261 

How are boys and girls going to find out what 
animals can do, how they live, how they make a 
living? 

The good old natural way to find out what an 
animal can do and will do is to catch him and watch 
him. Some small neighbours of mine did not catch 
grasshoppers and throw them into the water be- 
cause they were cruel, although their mother be- 
rated them for cruelty. They wanted to find out 
whether grasshoppers could swim or not. The boys 
who catch squirrels and rabbits and birds and put 
them in cages want to take care of them and teach 
them tricks. 

But, seeing the wild ones unhappy and drooping, 
most boys will voluntarily let them go. There 
is no good word to be said for the practice of caging 
wild creatures merely for the entertainment their 
misery will afford an irresponsible and curious 
crowd. I am glad to know that those horrid whirl- 
ing cages in which squirrels used to be shut have 
become less common. 

In these days of hunting without guns, there is 
also a good deal of taming without cages. This 
is the real thing, and has everything in its favour. 
There are two sides to it. From the animal's side 
the tamed one has nothing to lose. He, and for 



262 OUTDOOR WORK 

his sake, all his fellows, receive protection, consider- 
ation, care. If he tells any secrets, his confidence 
is not betrayed to the enemy. He comes and goes 
at will and pays his debts by keeping true that 
balance which existed in nature before mankind 
upset it. From the human side taming wild things 
is a delightful though not an easy way to learn to be 
patient, persevering, and gentle. You simply have 
to practise these virtues or you will fail. Further- 
more, the domestication of wild animals useful to 
man results in very great practical value. From the 
naturalist's point of view, this is a most fruitful 
method of discovering the true habits of the wild 
creatures, about which so much is yet to be learned. 

Most efforts to tame full-grown animals result 
in complete failure. Taken when young, almost 
any of them can be tamed. 

No one ought ever to have a pet of any kind un- 
less he sees one thing clearly: Forcing his pet to 
become dependent upon his protection and care 
involves a real responsibility. When I consider the 
number of cases of neglected pets I am inclined 
to discourage children from keeping them. It is 
a very good method of developing responsibility, 
but, if the method fails, the innocent pet suffers. 
The uncaged pet has an advantage over the caged 



TRAINED ANIMALS 263 

one in that he can, if neglected, return to the wild 
and shift for himself. 

BIRDS 

A great many famous people have made friends 
with our native birds. John Burroughs could 
depend on an audience of robins to perch on his knee. 
They would listen politely while he remonstrated 
with them for stealing his grapes, well assured that 
the next forkful of earth he turned would yield 
worms enough to repay them for waiting. It is not 
uncommon to see photographs of birds perching on 
the hands of children or grown people. One noted 
naturalist is pictured with a piece of bread in his 
mouth, out of which a bird is taking a bite. To 
really tame a full-grown bird is practically impos- 
sible. To gain its confidence is difficult. It means 
that the person has never in its presence made a 
motion suflSciently sudden to startle the timid 
creature nor lost his patience or self-control once 
during many trials. A bird is not tamed in an hour 
nor a day. A quick wave of the arm or a sharp noise 
is enough to undo all that has been accomplished in 
long, patient hours spent in establishing friendly re- 
lations. The photographs are records of triumphs. 

JProfessor Hodge encourages the taming of young 



264 OUTDOOR WORK 

birds in the interest of increasing our valuable bird 
life. He says: "It is a rare lesson in gentleness 
to capture a young bird without frightening it, 
but, if successfully done, your bird is practically 
tame. If even a young bird is caught after a severe 
chase, it is likely to be days, weeks, and even months, 
before the effects of its fright can be obliterated. 
If they can be picked up without frightening 
them, they will often immediately perch on the fin- 
ger and feed from the hand. I have tested this with 
young vireos, chipping sparrows, orioles, grackles, 
and repeatedly with young robins, which some 
even put down in their books as untamable. Think 
what a monster the open hand must seem to a bird!" 
Those of you who have read Mrs. Stratton-Por- 
ter's story of Freckles will remember how he tamed 
the wild birds. They were residents of the great 
primeval woodland and had not learned yet from 
sad experience to hide from men. They swarmed 
about the gentle Irish lad because he had made 
himself a part of the forest. To them he was like 
some new kind of beneficent tree, yielding nuts for 
the nut-eaters, grain for the grain-eaters, and bits 
of suet or scraps of meat for all who came for it. 
He called them all, *'Me chickens." Was there 
anything wonderful in this? Yes; so thought the 



TRAINED ANIMALS 265 

Scotch woodsman with whom Frecldes lived. And 
no, because anybody can do the same who will follow 
the same tactics. If you read on in the story, you will 
readily believe that his relations with the birds and 
the forest helped make Freckles the lovable boy and 
the fine, sweet-natured man he grew up to be. 

How to do something toward domesticating wild 
birds in order to make the country a better place 
to live in is treated more fully in a later chapter. 

Humming-birds are said to be entirely with- 
out fear if tamed when nestlings. They sometimes 
fall from the nest and are, of course, helpless so far 
as feeding themselves is concerned. They will 
take sweetened water from a spoon, but should not 
be expected to thrive on this diet alone. Their 
natural food while growing, and probably after- 
ward, too, is largely insects. A supply of these 
should be given the young birds. They become 
very tame and perch on the hand and on the flowers 
in vases. They will visit your best hat, too, if it 
has flowers on it, and will even try to collect nectar 
from the flowers on wall-paper or curtains. 

TOADS AND THEIR KIN 

One is really surprised at the long list of wild 
animals that have been successfully tamed. That 



266 OUTDOOR WORK 

is, they are sufficiently tame to come to the tamer, 
eat from his hand, nestle in his pocket, follow him 
about — in short, to show perfect confidence and little 
or no fear. 

The toad for example, "ugly and venomous," 
(we have Shakespeare's word for that, but he was 
mistaken) — , a very useful animal and absolutely 
without disagreeable traits. It has been carefully 
estimated that every toad is worth twenty dollars 
to the garden he lives in. Yet how seldom one hears 
of a tame toad. At best they are tolerated, but 
not often encouraged by protection or by a little at- 
tention. To tame a toad, one only needs to feed him. 
Frogs, salamanders, newts, snakes, turtles, and fish 
have all been tamed in the same fashion. As nearly 
all are insect eaters, we are benefiting mankind when 
we encourage them. 

SQUIRRELS 

Tame squirrels are amusing. It takes very 
little encouragement to make them tame enough 
to eat from the hand and even to rummage 
the pockets for nuts. I remember a case when 
the red squirrels made so free with the books in a 
great man's study that he became positively an- 
noyed, although he had himself encouraged theni 




Photograph by Charles VV. Miller 

The Crow May Be Tamed When Young 




The Skunk is an AiiiiaUk' and Wcll-Maiincred IVL 



TRAINED ANIMALS 267 

and had enjoyed their friendliness and lameness. The 
case got so bad that he was forced either to vacate 
or to get rid of the squirrels. He finally had a 
trap set. The first squirrel that came in ran straight 
into the trap. The great man had really not counted 
on any such circumstance. He was nonplussed. 
In all his diplomatic career no such a situation had 
arisen. He gave the matter earnest thought. 
He considered all the pros and cons. He weighed 
all the evidence. The squirrel was guilty ! 

When asked by a friend what penalty he pro- 
nounced, the great man replied: "I read him such 
a lecture as he will never forget — and turned 
him loose!" 

The relations of the red squirrel with the birds 
are such that we are pretty sure they should be 
discouraged. They are, alas! egg-suckers and nest- 
robbers. The gray squirrel has not been caught 
in this nefarious occupation. If plenty of nuts, 
fruit, and water were supplied for red squirrels, 
maybe they could be cured of their bad habits. 

The flying squirrel is to me the most beautiful 
member of his family. He is said to tame easily, but 
I remember the only pair we ever caught were 
shut in a convenient closet "till morning.'* When 
morning came there were only a little pile of 



268 OUTDOOR WORK 

gnawings and a hole under the door to tell the story. 
They had flown, nor could I blame them. 

RACCOONS, WOODCHUCKS, AND SKUNKS 

A raccoon is a most satisfactory pet and will 
afford about as much amusement in the back yard 
as a cage of monkeys. Raccoons are more numer- 
ous, especially in New England, than formerly. They 
are extremely fond of green corn, but corn in any 
form is eaten greedily. Also, I regret to say, they 
are nest-robbers. In fact, they will eat fish, flesh, and 
fowl, as well as vegetables and insects. This makes 
the food problem for a pet 'coon a very simple 
one. But we can not afford to encourage them, 
because of their bird-eating habits. 

Sometimes a hunter finds a suckling 'coon in the 
woods. He cannot let the helpless thing starve, 
as it certainly would if left. When he gets it home, 
he will realize that its natural food is 'coon's milk. 
Some bright [member of the family will suggest 
that a bottle of cow's milk with rubber nipple will 
do the trick. Having no such convenience as a 
rubber nipple, we once successfully brought up a 
baby pig on a bottle. We took a goose quill and 
wrapped it with a strip of clean old cotton cloth 
till we made a stopper for the bottle. This was 




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TRAINED ANIMALS 269 

fine, and I can recommend it for suckling lambs, 
pigs, fawns, 'coons, and other young mammals. 
There are well-authenticated stories of baby 
'coons being adopted by cats whose young have 
been "disposed of." 

A 'coon is a most mischievous creature, and if 
you tame one you should really not expect your 
mother to feel all the enthusiasm you do about him, 
for his mischief is sometimes exasperating. An 
animal enclosure in the back yard may be necessary, 
but that means more work for you to keep the 'coon 
and his mates happy. 

Tame woodchucks are said by experienced boys 
to be a great success. Young ones are easy to 
capture, for they are not allowed to "hang around" 
the home nest after the parents decide that they are 
big enough to earn their own way. In "American 
Animals" there is a good story of a tame 'chuck 
for which the author traded an old fish line with a 
broken hook and thirteen cents "to boot." This 
little chap was brought up by hand and developed 
most interesting traits. He made life miserable for the 
family tabbies by nipping their heels, and he tunnelled 
under the door step till he made the earth cave in. 
A wild woodchuck will show fight when in danger 
of capture, but the tamed ones are not vicious. 



270 OUTDOOR WORK 

The last creature I should ever think of becoming 
familiar with is the skunk. Yet I have a photo- 
graph of a lady feeding a full-sized one from her 
hand. The account that went with the picture said 
that this skunk was in "perfectly good working 
order," too. Several naturalists have tamed these 
little animals, and there is no doubt that they make 
amusing and well-behaved pets. 

Prairie dogs, chipmunks, badgers, fawns, 'possums, 
crows, and many other native wild animals have 
been successfully tamed. You may have read of 
"Red" Saunders's pets, the bob-cat, the snake, and 
Judge, the hawk. Whether you would call them 
tame or not depends. They certainly had "wild, wild 
ways," though they frequented the kitchen and 
slept under the stove, one at a time. The same 
methods must be employed, no matter what the 
creature is. Gentleness, patience, and common 
sense will succeed almost every time with young 
animals. 



VI 

MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 
KECLAIMING A TROUT STREAM 

I USED to ketch trout that 'ud weigh two 
pound in that little crick back of my pasture 
when I 'uz a boy." 
Who has not heard old men say that? They seem 
to have just accepted the lack of trout as one other 
piece of bad luck, like wormy apples, blighted 
wheat, and other dispensations of Providence. The 
younger generation are not satisfied with this view. 
If good wheat can be grown by modern methods, and 
wormy apples prevented by spraying, why shouldn't 
trout be caught in grandpa's old brook? No reason 
in the world. In between you and grandpa there was 
a generation of neglect. Your father and his brothers 
probably went to town to seek their fortunes. Any- 
how, everybody was too busy to fish, and something 
went wrong with the brook that needs to be righted. 
Any stream that has been a trout stream once 
can be so again, provided that the water is not fed 

271 



272 OUTDOOR WORK 

with poisoned drainage from some mill or factory. 
If the forest has been removed and natural condi- 
tions so changed that the brook that used to be 
perennial is now only semi-annual, going dry in time 
of drought, it will be necessary to build a series of 
dams to make sure that the water will always be deep 
enough for trout. A spring-fed brook is best ; it is cool 
and constant. Lower the channel by digging where 
refuse has choked the natural course of the stream, 
but don't tidy it up enough to make it artificial. 
The ideal brook, and the country is full of 
them, has gravelly or sandy stretches which 
serve as spawning beds, swift rapids where exercise 
is necessary, and deep pools for rest and quiet, 
shallow places where insects lurk in the overhanging 
vegetation, and once in a great while a real little 
waterfall where the water gets well churned and 
mixed with air. The brook ought to supply enough 
food for all, but I have seen fish so plentiful in 
well-cared-for streams that it was necessary to 
feed them. We would take great pans of specially 
prepared food to the water's edge; as we threw it 
broadcast on the surface the trout would leap 
entirely out of the water in their eagerness to get 
the morsels. We did not feed them liver because 
the epicure does not like his trout to have a liver 




riu)to^rai)h )>y Helen W. Codke 

I'Icntv of 'rroiit ill This Slrcani Wlirii (iraiidfather Was a Boy 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 273 

flavour. The natural food of the trout should be 
encouraged to breed in the trout stream. You can 
restock your stream with the little crustaceans, 
insect nymphs, and similar fish food from other 
streams if you think it necessary. A few pails 
full of mud carried across will start them. 

The greatest necessity is to protect your fish from 
their natural enemies. Big fish will eat little fish, 
trout will eat trout, so will bass, pickerel, and 
suckers. You can keep the big fish out by screen- 
ing the spillway at the upper dam. 

There is good fim to be had in raising trout from 
the egg. This work has been regarded by most 
people as too complicated and too difficult for any 
but an expert. As a matter of fact, it is no more 
difficult than many of the occupations boys engage 
in, chicken raising, bee-keeping, and photography, 
for instance. Visit a fish hatchery if you have one 
near, get all the government bulletins on the sub- 
ject, and, if you have available running water, you 
can try your hand at trout growing. It would not 
appeal to many, but it is really fascinating work. 

SPRINGS FOR TROUT CULTURE 

If there are constant, cold springs on your place, 
you are neglecting a golden opportunity for earning 



274 OUTDOOR WORK 

money in an easy and delightful way. A spring is 
capable of furnishing living room for a large family 
of trout. You can sell live trout at sixty -five cents 
to a dollar a pound to a first-class hotel. The big 
fish bring the smaller prices per pound, those weigh- 
ing from half a pound to a pound being most popular. 
Clean out your spring first and make a basin 
ten to twenty feet square, the bigger the better. 
Put a fine, galvanized iron netting over the overflow 
of your reservoir. Young fish can be bought from a 
fish hatchery in the form of eggs, fry, fingerlings, 
yearlings, or even larger. The government will 
stock your streams for you free, but it imposes 
certain conditions, which is quite just and proper. 
Get all the information you can from state fish 
hatcheries or the United States Bureau of Fisheries, 
before you decide finally. 

RECLAIMING A SPRING 

There is often a neighbourhood tradition con- 
cerning a wonderful spring somewhere near, a spring 
that never ceases to flow, no matter how complete 
the drought. The water is pure, cold, and clear; 
maybe the oldest inhabitant had it from his grand- 
father how the Indians used always to camp near it 
on their cross-country marches from the Catskills 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 275 

to the Blue Ridge. They call it *'The Old Indian 
Spring." Sometimes they tell hair-raising tales 
of midnight adventures and hair-breadth escapes, 
till you wonder that the spring itself never turned 
red with the spilt blood. From stories of early 
pioneer days one gets a good idea of the very great 
importance of the ever faithful spring. With the 
certainty of a pure water supply for family and 
beasts, a man might safely carve a home in a prime- 
val forest. Without it, he must push on yet another 
lap toward the wilderness. 

I remember such a spring. Generations of red 
men, trekking from one hunting-ground to another or 
maybe waging their own peculiar war in the enemy's 
country, have depended on this spring for their 
success. Later generations of pioneers have passed 
that way and refreshed themselves with its sweet 
water. As years went by, the spring fell into disuse 
and gushed on forgotten. But forty years ago it 
was re-discovered by a searching party, identified 
as an historic spot, reclaimed, and made perman- 
ently useful and beautiful by public spirit. 

Nobody knows just how to appreciate a spring 
except the person who discovers it, reclaims it, 
and makes it do his bidding. No bit of his own 
ingenuity pleases the householder quite as much as 



276 OUTDOOR WORK 

his spring, his piping, his reservoir, and his little 
hydraulic ram, yet one of the last springs I visited 
was in a New England pasture. Its only protection 
was a sort of fence of poles to keep the cattle out. 
To approach it you had to leap from hillock to 
hillock, in constant danger of losing your balance 
and sinking in a deep mud hole. The spring bubbled 
up clear as crystal in a most unromantic hole in 
the ground; its overflow simply spread out on the 
ground between the hummocks. It didn't look 
thrifty to me. Two days' work would have laid a 
basin rim of small stones about that spring with a 
piece of tile for an overflow pipe, and a shallow 
channel might have been dug to carry the surplus 
to the edge of the slope where another basin for the 
cattle might have been made, or to a trough. 

The water of a spring ought to be analyzed by 
a chemist before it is used for drinlving. Nobody 
knows what contamination is possible to a spring 
whose sources are mystery. Campers ought to be 
particularly careful in this, especially if their camp 
is near settlements. 

The first step in reclaiming a spring is to dig out 
a basin. The chances are that the one made by the 
water is too shallow for practical purposes. Com- 
pute the number of gallons you want in reserve and 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 277 

take out enough cubic feet of soil to make a basin of 
that capacity. Decide next what to do with the 
surplus. Your basin is not designed to hold the 
spring's daily output. If the spring is in a ravine, 
nothing is simpler than to lay a tile drain from the 
basin down to the stream bed. By damming 
the stream you can make a pond for waterfowl, 
for trout raising, or for a swimming hole: but that 
is another story. 

The basin should have a protecting rim. For 
a number of reasons this should be solid and per- 
manent. You are sure to want to sit on it and 
watch the water, for one thing. Then, too, you want 
a protection against surface water. All sorts of 
decaying animal and vegetable matter must be kept 
out of the spring, so cover it tightly. 

MAKING A SWIMMING POOL 

In a country where wooded brooks are plentiful 
there is absolutely no good reason why boys 
shouldn't have a swimming pool. It needn't cost 
a thousand dollars, either. Every outdoor club 
ought to have one as a special feature. The same 
dam that holds back the water for the skating pond 
may serve in summer to make the swimming hole. 
It is really fun to build a dam. Your father or 



278 OUTDOOR WORK 

the other boy's father will know how. You can 
dig out the stream at low water, and make the pool 
deep enough for diving. 

High banks make the place more private; trees 
and underbrush serve the same purpose. But 
if the banks are not high naturally, and the trees 
have been cut away you have no idea how quickly 
you can make a natural screen. Willows love the 
margin of streams and they grow tremendously. 
A frame of poles covered with wild cucumber or 
morning glory will make a good screen the first 
season while the permanent trees and shrubs are 
growing. You don't need to swim all your spare 
time, so you can give some time to making the pool 
more secluded. Move a few big bushes from the 
woods in winter. They will never know the dif- 
ference if you transplant them while their roots 
are frozen in a big ball of earth. 

Let me make a suggestion to you. You believe 
everybody ought to know how to swim, don't you.'^ 
That includes your father, of course, who taught 
you. Does it include your sisters and the other 
boys' sisters? *' Everybody " is a big word, now you 
think of it. Why it includes even your mother ! Do 
mothers know anything about swimming? Some of 
them do, already, only they never get a chance to 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 279 

keep in practice; but they like it. It is precisely as 
natural for girls and mothers to enjoy the water as 
it is for boys and fathers. Just be generous and let 
it be understood that a certain day in the week is 
ladies' day, and turn the pool over to them. Their 
bathing suits may not be in the latest fashion, but 
you won't be there to criticize nor to see how well 
they really swim. 

A HOME-MADE SKATING POND 

The family who own a tennis court and enjoy 
no skating in the winter have their own want of in- 
genuity to blame, if they live in the Jack Frost 
belt. Any level piece of ground, even the grass 
plot in the back yard, can be skated on. 

You need first to set a six-inch board on edge all 
round the level plot. This board should be three 
inches in the ground and three inches out. 

As winter approaches, rig a trough from the pump 
to the pond-to-be or have the hose where it can be 
attached to the spigot at a moment's notice. Wait 
for a hard freeze. When it comes, and the ground 
is like rock, give the word "all hands to the pumps." 
Let on enough water to cover the surface, then let 
it freeze. If you get a smooth surface the first go 
you are luckier than most boys. Cover the first 



280 OUTDOOR WORK 

coat with a second and that with a third layer until 
you have smooth ice. 

Then skate. On cold nights spray the worn places 
if you use a hose, or run on another half -inch of water. 

A good skating pond can be made by boys with a 
little ingenuity, which in this case means engineer- 
ing ability, by damming a brook until it floods a 
naturally flat area above its own level. Or by 
damming the outlet of a pond before dry weather 
comes on and holding the water at a higher level 
than it would naturally have. It is perfectly as- 
tonishing what a small dam will do, if cleverly 
placed. Study the work of beavers if you know of any. 
You can get pointers from mill-dams built by your 
great-grandsires, if there are any in your vicinity. In 
one of the books for boys, mentioned in the book list, 
are practical suggestions about building dams. 

Sometimes boys think nature has not done as much 
for them as for boys who have a natural swimming 
pool, a skating pond, or a trout brook. Maybe if 
you helped her out a little, nature would do her 
part in your case, too. 

THE STORY OF RECLAIMING A SPRING 

When I was fourteen years old my father bought 
his property in Ithaca, N. Y., on which we live. 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 281 

That part of it on which there is now a fine spring 
was considered worthless. Through this property 
ran a well-wooded glen, the upper end of which was 
very wet and swampy. This condition was due 
to several small springs emerging from the ground 
at the head of the glen. All of these springs joined 
and flowed down through the glen, forming a fairly 
large stream. This stream flowed continually 
throughout summer and winter, without change 
of volume. 

The first step in the reclaiming of this spring was 
to collect all the water through tile drains into a 
large, concrete reservoir. This reservoir, which was 
four feet wide, four feet high, and twelve feet long, 
was constructed about two feet under ground. An 
open spring basin was connected with this reservoir 
by a two and one-half inch iron pipe. This basin 
was made of rough stones laid in cement, and the 
back side of it arched over a foot or more, forming 
a partial roof. On the open side is a concrete 
seat where one can conveniently sit and get a drink. 
My father and I did all the work except part of the 
ditch digging. From this basin was laid a one and 
a quarter-inch iron pipe which carried the water 
down the glen a distance of about sixty feet to a 
hydraulic ram. This ram is always running, and 



28^ OUTDOOR WORK 

is made to go by the constant pressure of the water 
from the spring basin. The water is forced through 
a half-inch iron pipe to a large tank in the attic of 
the house situated on the hill above. The tank, 
which holds about five hundred gallons, supplies 
the house with pure, cold water for all purposes. 
As the water is always flowing into the tank it is 
provided with an inch and a half over-flow pipe, 
which carries the surplus water back into the glen. 
Thus, through a series of pipes and a ram, the water 
is conveyed from the reservoir throughout the house. 
By building a small dam farther down, we made a fair- 
sized pond on which to domesticate some wild fowl. 
The ground drained by concentrating the springs 
was well adapted because of its fertility for the 
growing of shrubbery and flowers of many sorts. 
In the wetter places, ferns and pink and yellow 
lady slippers were planted, and in the dryer area 
shrubbery, such as the red bud and azalea. Thus, 
what was once a mud hole was transformed into a 

useful piece of ground. 

John Needham 

a back yard swimming pool 

Somewhere and somehow our boys came into pos- 
session of the idea that they could make a swimming 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 283 

pool. I think the original suggestion came from 
Country Life in America, wherein was described, 
with beautiful pictures, a swimming pool that cost 
five thousand dollars or six thousand dollars. 
The boys had land a-plenty, water, too, and 
a will to work if they were shown what to do. 
With the decision made that a swimming pool 
must be had, a council was held to decide 
on ways and means. The oldest boy, aged thirteen, 
stoutly maintained that he could do the entire work 
himself, while the youngest, aged four, was equally 
confident that the job was entirely within his capac- 
ity. It was finally agreed that I should stake out 
the ground and furnish the material, and the boys 
would do the work. With some slight modifications 
this plan was followed throughout. It was decided 
to make the pool twenty -five feet long, ten feet wide, 
and four feet deep. The ground was thereupon 
staked off and the boys fell to with a will remov- 
ing the earth. 

It was hard digging, but the youngsters stuck to 
the work and finished within a week. Earth to 
the depth of three feet was removed, and by piling 
this around the entire margin of the excavation the 
level was raised about one and one half feet for a 
distance of eight feet on all sides. This plan avoided 



284 OUTDOOR WORK 

the necessity of hauling away the earth, gave the 
desired depth, and provided a flat surface eight 
feet wide all around the pool. 

The rough digging being finished, the sides of 
the excavation were trimmed with a spade to an 
angle of about forty -five degrees. Rough two by 
four-inch studding was then cut into lengths of four 
and one half feet and placed four feet apart all 
around the banks. Where each piece of studding 
was set, the earth was removed, so that the timber 
was made flush with the soil. The end of each 
piece of timber was also sunk in the earth at the 
bottom of the pit for about three inches, in order 
that it might be held firmly against the bank. 
Rough pine boards, free from cracks and knot holes, 
were then nailed to the timbers at the top only. 
These boards were twelve inches wide, and thus 
formed a border or rim all around the upper por- 
tion of the pit, one foot in width. At right angles 
to the twelve-inch rough boards others of the same 
size were nailed, the last projecting out on the level 
ground, thus forming a boardwalk around the ex- 
cavation. The main object of these boards was to 
keep the waves from washing the banks and to give 
a clean place upon which to stand or sit while not 
actually in the water. 



MAKING BROOKS AND SPRINGS USEFUL 285 

The boards being up, there was still left about 
three feet of the sides, and the entire bottom of the 
excavation, without covering of any kind. It was 
decided to cover the sides and bottom with cement, 
plastering this material directly upon the earth. 
The cement was mixed with sand, one part cement 
and two parts of sand, and was spread on with a 
mason's trowel. Two and a half barrels of cement 
and about four barrels of sand were used. Toward 
the last, pure cement was applied as a thin wash to 
the entire surface. 

The cementing was a pretty tough job, but with 
the help of an old coloured man the work was finally 
done in a thorough manner, and the pit was then 
as tight as a jug. It was allowed to dry for two 
days ; then the water was turned in. The water was 
supplied from the service pipe of our home near by, 
and as it is furnished by meter, we had no qualms as to 
the quantity used. The pool holds about eight 
thousand gallons and requires from twelve to fifteen 
hours to fill it through a three-quarter inch pipe. 

The entire cost of the work, not counting the 

boys' time, was as follows: 

12 boards, 1 X 12 X 16 $2.25 

8 pieces rough pine, 2 x 4 x 16 1 . 05 

2^ barrels cement at $1.50 per barrel 3.75 

Total $7.05 



286 OUTDOOR WORK 

The pool was located in the shade of some willowi 
on ground sHghtly higher than the adjacent terri- 
tory. Every few days some of the water was 
siphoned off through a piece of hose and fresh water 
run in. Once a week, however, about a handful of 
copper sulphate was tied up in a piece of cheese- 
cloth and thrown into the pool, where it was whipped 
up and down in the general fun until all the copper 
was dissolved. The copper kept the water absolutely 
pure and sweet throughout the entire season, and 
not a sign of algae appeared. 

The pool was a source of constant delight, not 
only to our youngsters, but to those of our neighbours. 
All but the four-year-old learned to swim, and by 
the end of the season even he could make some pre- 
liminary moves in that direction. The moral of the 
story is that if you have some youngsters, a back 
yard and a city water pipe you do not need to go 
to the seashore for fun. Give the boys a chance to 
make a swimming pool and they will enjoy it all the 
more if it is the result of their handiwork. 

Beverly T. Galloway 



I 



vn 

KEEPING BEES 

PICKED up a number of the Bee-Keeper* s 
Review one day and my eye caught this 
surprising headline: 

"A Boy's Business Worth $1000 " 



I opened my eyes and read on in astonishment about 
a boy who started with no more capital than any 
boy could get together, and, without sacrificing 
his school or college plans, built up a bee business 
which he sold for one thousand dollars. In the 
meantime his bees had not only paid their own 
board but his as well. If one boy can make a 
success like that, other boys can. So can girls, for 
bee-keeping is a form of outdoor work which seems 
admirably suited to sensible, nature-loving girls. 

HOW TO BEGIN 

There are a good many ways to begin this like 
any other business, but there is probably a best 

287 



288 OUTDOOR WORK 

way for each person. Fortunately one does not 
have to begin on a large scale. In my opinion 
the only way to learn how to keep bees right is to 
keep them. Experienced bee-keepers advise young 
people to visit a practical apiary and watch the 
owner among his bees, taking note of what he does 
and says. Offer your services if he needs help, 
asking him to explain what he is doing and what 
for. Stay a few days or a week if he will keep you 
and learn all you can. One young woman spent a 
summer vacation on a farm where twenty or thirty 
colonies of bees were kept, and helped whenever 
anything was to be done with the bees. When 
she went home she took a colony of bees with her, 
and now she is manager of her own apiary with a 
larger income than the average teacher and ten 
times the leisure. 

For beginners the cheaper bees are satisfactory. 
Later, nothing will be too good. A stand of bees 
can be bought for two dollars or three dollars, but 
a colony of choice Italians in a modern hive with 
tested queen may come as high as fifteen dollars. 
Better have them to sell than to buy at that price. 

There are cheaper ways of getting them than 
buying them. If a runaway swarm which no owner 
claims, alights in your yard the bees may be yours 



KEEPING BEES 289 

by right of discovery and if you hive them success- 
fully, by right of possession. This method though 
practised by some has not the sanction of the golden 
rule, and is not here recommended. What fun it 
would be, though, to secure a runaway swarm and 
make the visitors comfortable in a temporary hive. 
You would probably find they belonged in the 
apiary nearest you and ten to one the owner would 
just as soon you kept them unless they were a very 
choice kind. He will be so pleased that you were 
able to hive them that he will offer you something 
substantial for your work. He may give you the 
bees, and your bee-keeping will begin *'by accident" 
as did the life-work of the famous veteran apiarist, 
Mr. A. I. Root. 

Make a small beginning. Many successful bee- 
keepers had less than twenty dollars to begin with. 
One colony is a start. It is astonishing how quickly 
bees begin to "pay their way" and this test ought 
to be applied in all your ventures. Keep a strict 
account of all your expenditures in supplies, and 
credit the bees with all the honey you take off and 
with the new swarms. If I say this often, it is be- 
cause it must be repeated to fix its importance in the 
mind. If you make good interest on your money 
you know it is safely invested. If, however, you 



290 OUTDOOR WORK 

charge up your time against the bees you must credit 
them with the fun you have, the outdoor exercise 
you get in caring for them and the consequent free- 
dom from doctor bills. 

THE BEST PLACE FOR BEES 

You will read of keeping bees on a city roof, in a 
suburban attic, and on boats; but the most natural 
place for them is in the village or country, where 
fields of clover, groves of basswood, and patches 
of buckwheat abound. An orchard or large garden 
is incomplete without a few hives. The young 
bee-keeper with these advantages is to be congrat- 
ulated; the conditions are ideal. All he needs is 
a liking for bees and spunk. 

Before you get the first colony decide where your 
apiary is to be located. Even one hive must have 
a place and you must plan for increase. An orchard 
is a fine place, and the hives should be at least 
fifty feet from the street or road, because bees do 
not recognize the laws of the open road and turn 
neither to the right nor to the left. If necessary 
to put them next the street or close to a neighbour's 
garden, there should be tall bushes, a hedge, or a 
high fence to protect the passers-by. Otherwise 
your venture into bee culture may make you "bad 



KEEPING BEES 291 

friends" with the neighbours and even carry you 
before the justice of the peace. 

In very hot weather some shade is necessary for 
beehives, but too much shade may result in failure. 
The morning sun and the late afternoon sun are 
good for bees, but the heat of the mid-day sun may 
cause the comb to melt and bring disaster to bees 
young and old. As moving the active colonies 
is not always safe, it pays to make a plan in the 
beginning for the whole number you expect to have. 
This is a case where it is justifiable to "count your 
chickens before they are hatched." It will not 
take much imagination to draw a plan on paper 
locating the principal objects in and near the 
apiary -to-be, and to sketch in the location of the 
ten, fifteen, or twenty hives you are likely to have 
five years from now. If you have no large, decid- 
uous trees to offer ideal shade you needn't give up 
the idea of keeping bees. With the modem venti- 
lated covers, bees are successfully kept out in the sun, 
if protected from wind and storms. A grape arbour 
affords good protection. It should run from east 
to west. Any trellis with quick growing vines like 
hops, Virginia creeper, or grapes, will serve well. 
Grapes give best return as they bear fruit and 
their blossoms supply honey in season. Where no 



292 OUTDOOR WORK 

natural shade is possible a shade board or air-spaced 
cover supplies the lack. A shade board can be made 
of any old box material. Lay a couple of sticks 
across the top of the hive to rest the shade board 
on and to let the air circulate. 

Wind is worse for bees than too much sun. Bless 
the pioneers of the windy country if, by reason of 
their forethought, you have a real evergreen wind- 
break on your place. If you have not this ideal 
windbreak, a building will serve, or your hedge or 
high board fence should be on the windy side. 

If you start, as many have, with one or two colonies 
let them face the south or east and leave space 
enough between the hives to run a lawn mower. 
As your number increases, your original plan may be 
changed, but it always pays to make the plan. 

Try to consider, in the arrangement of the hives, 
not only convenience but beauty. If a board fence 
is necessary, train vines to cover its bare ugliness; 
a fringe of low shrubs will help make it beautiful. 
As your apiary grows, experience will teach you how 
to group the hives to get the best results. Twenty 
hives grouped in fives under the north side of four 
big, spreading apple trees would be the ideal I would 
set for myself if the orchard was ready for occupancy. 
If I began at the age of fourteen years, I could easily 



KEEPING BEES 293 

reach this ideal in six years and keep my other 
duties up, too. By that time I should know whether 
I wanted to be a bee-keeper or not. A great many 
people find that the chicken business combines well 
with some other business or profession. It is sur- 
prising that more people do not consider bee-keeping 
in the same way. Barring accidents, bees are far 
easier to handle, cleaner, and they board themselves. 
You can leave them over Sunday without any qualms 
of conscience and without arranging with somebody 
to feed and water them. The bees will not get 
out and scratch up your garden or your neighbour's, 
but they will do work in the garden that is too fine 
for your hands to tackle, and your crops will be 
bigger because of their visits. Chicken owners 
always sleep with one ear open, expecting night 
prowlers to appear and carry off their best stock. 
But who ever heard of a burglar alarm on a beehive? 
There are honey thieves, but they are not common. 
Beehives look best on a carpet of grass, but if 
you have to be away during much of the summer 
wide rough boards should be placed in front of the 
entrance to the hives to keep the grass down. A 
bee is likely to come home heavily laden and pretty 
well fagged out with a long flight. If she should 
settle in a tangle of grass she would be likely to 



294 OUTDOOR WORK 

give up the struggle and fail to answer to roll call 
the next morning. Keep the grass short in front 
of the hives, then, if you have to cut it with shears, 
which is not as dangerous as it sounds, once you 
get used to it. This is best done on cold or wet 
days when few bees are going in and out. Salt, 
ashes, or gravel may be sprinkled close up to the 
hives to kill the grass. 

BUYING BEES 

Even the people with bees to sell advise beginners 
to buy from some one in their neighbourhood. It is 
not safe, though, to move bees less than a mile and 
a half as they are likely to return to their old loca- 
tion. Buy from an up-to-date apiary if you can, 
and get standard hives; the old box hives are not 
worth anything; neither are fancy hives of com- 
plicated structure. The entrance to the hive should 
be closed with wire cloth after the bees all get home 
in the early evening. If closed in the middle of 
the day you are cheated. In warm weather the 
cover should be taken off; in its place should be put 
the super over which wire-cloth has been tacked. 
Strips of wood can be nailed on top of this to which 
the cover can be fastened. By this arrangement 
ventilation is secured. We once lost a colony 



KEEPING BEES 295 

shipped by express without any provision for the 
circulation of air. Night is the best time to move 
the bees, though it can be done in the daytime; a 
cold day is best. Remove the wire cloth the first 
night after placing in permanent location. 

Spring is the best season to buy your first colony. 
The price may be higher but the risk is less. Get 
a strong colony that has wintered well, which con- 
tains, on the average, twenty -five thousand to thirty- 
five thousand worker bees. 

It would be well just here for the beginner to get 
acquainted with the opinions of the best bee-keepers 
about the kinds of bees. There are varieties among 
bees as well as among hens, pigeons, dogs, and horses. 
Americans like to be "hail, fellow, well met" with 
all their live stock, and although even the best 
tempered bee might resent a cordial slap on the 
flank, there are bee-lovers who tell of stroking their 
little winged friends with a grass stem. It requires 
real sympathy to succeed with bees just as it does 
with chickens or cows. No one can work long with 
them without becoming intensely interested. Most 
people learn to love them and find absorbing occu- 
pation in studying their ways. 

Two races of hive bees are common here, though 
none are native: German, or black, and Italian. All 



296 OUTDOOR WORK 

the books and magazines as well as bee-lovers un- 
hesitatingly recommend the latter as the more good- 
tempered, being at the same time hardy, prolific, 
and industrious. Good hybrids, that is, a mixture 
of black and Italian blood, may do almost as well as 
pure stock, but pure-bred queens are a necessity 
to keep the grade up. When you hear of people 
who gather bees by handfuls into aprons or 
baskets you may be sure that those concerned are all 
thoroughbreds. 

If there are no bees for sale near by, the best plan 
is to order from a dealer in the spring what is known 
as a nucleus. This is a very small colony, about a 
quart of bees (three thousand two hundred), should 
be accompanied by a tested queen, and housed in 
a modern hive with three frames of comb. The 
queen sets to work laying eggs in the cells, new 
frames should be added as needed, and if pollen and 
nectar are plentiful the hive will soon be full of 
busy young workers. By fall the frames should be 
stored with the honey needed for the winter. 

Your first expense after securing a colony will 
not be for "mixed grain" or "middlings," but for a 
smoker, a bee veil and gloves, extra hives for your 
swarms, honey sections, and other supplies. Don't 
buy everything that looks useful or is highly recom- 



KEEPING BEES 297 

mended by the salesman. Maybe he never saw a 
bee. Sometimes an old spoon or other cheap utensil 
can be made into a more useful tool than the one he 
wants fifty cents for. 

The following list includes the supplies you are 
pretty sure to need the first year: 

One colony of bees, in an up-to-date though sim- 
ply constructed hive. On the whole, the ten-frame 
hive seems to me to have advantages over a smaller 
one. A deep telescope cover gives room for two 
supers on top at once. The only advantage in the 
chajff hives seems to be that winter protection is 
not needed for bees housed in them. The obvious 
disadvantage is their greater cost, size, and weight. 
Single walled hives are so easily made weatherproof, 
(see Wintering) that the expense of the chaff hive 
is not necessary. 

Three extra hives. 

Two supers; four super covers. 

Two to five hundred section boxes for comb honey. 
You will not need very many of these the first 
year, but they come cheaper in larger lots. 

One smoker. Of the several kinds offered, you 
may safely choose the one that you have seen used 
successfully. 

One pair bee gloves; one bee veil. 



298 OUTDOOR WORK 

One pound brood foundation, for the new swarms 
to begin on. 

Two pounds thin super-foundation for starters 
in the honey sections. 

One foundation fastener. One experienced bee- 
keeper tells me that he likes the "Dewey" best. 
Others prefer the "Daisy." 

One Porter bee escape. 

One bee brush. 

One queen and drone trap. The new Alley trap 
is made with bars instead of perforated zinc, and 
works better. 

A bee-keeper's guide. (See list of books in the ap- 
pendix.) 

Complete directions for putting together the 
hives, etc., should accompany the filled order, and 
the novice should work with one eye on the printed 
page. A good book on bee-keeping should be in- 
cluded in the beginner's order. Those recommended 
in the book list in the appendix are all good books 
for beginners. 

BEES AS WAGE EARNERS 

Average American boys and girls are a pretty 
sensible crowd and they don't expect to get much 
for nothing. If they make money they like to see 



KEEPING BEES 299 

"for value received" written on it. They may 
get enthusiastic over the work they undertake, but 
there is a difference between enthusiasm and gush. 
Enthusiasm helps you do the hard part of your job. 
Gush only makes you ridiculous. Is there anything 
worth doing that doesn't take time and work.f^ 
The honey-producing business is no exception. 
But the people who keep bees like their job. *' Yes, " 
they say, "it takes thought and energy and some 
hard work, but it is such fun." The "little people" 
are so interesting that you forget that it is work. 
Compared to "butter money," "egg money," and 
"fruit money, "the women of the household regard 
"honey money" as "easy." 

How much can you count on your bees earning? 
General statements will give you some idea. You 
may do better or not so well as the average. A 
good colony ought to turn out thirty or forty 
pounds of comb honey a year beside what they 
need for winter, which is fifteen or twenty -five 
pounds if wintered in a cellar, twenty-five or thirty- 
five pounds if wintered outdoors. 

The best market for honey is the home market, 
and the price is the best. You get the commission 
man's profit and the retailer's profit as well as the 
grower's. The last honey I bought was twenty- 



300 OUTDOOR WORK 

five cents a pound. If I bought your thirty pounds 
at that price you can see for yourself what you would 
get per hive. The new swarms add to your assets 
and you are out nothing except for supplies. Com- 
pare this with the expense of going into chicken 
or squab raising. The following is quoted from a 
good authority : "Two dollars a year clear profit per 
hive is the very lowest estimate and twenty to thirty 
hives infringe very little on one's time. This many 
colonies may easily be managed by a woman or by 
the younger members of the family." 

The United States has to import two and a half 
million pounds of honey annually, and a half million 
pounds of beeswax. Will not our bees work just 
as cheaply as those in foreign countries .^^ Let us 
have more bee-keepers. 

HIVES 

Little flat-topped white houses varying in height, 
standing under the trees in back yards are not an 
unfamiliar sight to most of us. We say as we pass 
on the road, "Those people keep bees," and our 
mouths begin to water. But what do the hives 
look like inside.'^ They are not mere hollow boxes. 
Wild bees are content with a hollow tree, but modern 
domesticated bees require a special kind of furniture. 



KEEPING BEES 301 

The first eaters of honey were simply robbers of 
the wild bees. When man began to domesticate 
bees, and that was so long ago that we cannot stop 
to count the centuries, there came to be two sides 
to the bargain. In return for a share in their stores 
he kept them in clean quarters, provided abundant 
pasture, protected them from their enemies and 
from the weather. The old-fashioned hives were 
very picturesque affairs; you see them in pictures, 
and when you travel in Europe you may see them 
still in use. Those skeps do not encourage doing 
much with the bees or knowing what is going on 
in the dark hive. I wonder how the folks ever got 
any honey to eat. The modern bee-keeper wants 
to open his hive for a good many reasons. He not 
only wants honey when the bees have an over-supply, 
but he wants to know what is doing. He wants 
to know if his expensive queen is doing her duty; 
he wants to know if too many young queens are 
being developed; he wants to know if any diseases 
or other enemies are present. He therefore must 
have a hive that permits frequent and minute in- 
spection of its interior. 

"But," said one boy, "I don't intend to open my 
hives and get stung all over." Now who expects to 
get stung all over? There's no denying that bees 



302 



OUTDOOR WORK 



sometimes sting, cats often scratch, dogs sometimes 
bite, goats butt, cows hook, horses kick, and so on. 
Some method of self-defence is their right, and I 
doubt if we should find bees so interesting if they 

did not carry concealed 
weapons. We certainly 
respect their rights as 
we might not if they 
were defenceless. A bee 
sting is uncomfortable 
while it lasts, but people 
afraid of bees get very 
little sympathy from 
me. Rest assured that 
you will open your hives 
often and the less said 
about being stung the 
better. 

If possible examine at 
a dealer's or at some 
apiary an empty hive. 
Learn the uses and 
names of the parts. 
The bottom board rep- 
resents the foundation, the brood chamber 
is the living room, and the supers are the attic 




Modem hive, showing parts in 
their correct order 



KEEPING BEES 303 

store rooms. The flat cover is the rain-proof roof. 
The hive must be a good home for the bees 
and easily handled by the operator. The bot- 
tom board should not rest directly on the ground 
because of dampness, which rots the wood and is 
not good for the bees. Some use hive stands, others 
set the hives on a platform, supported by wooden 
blocks or on tiles as illustrated here. 

Beehives, like cottages nowadays, must have all 
the modern conveniences, and up-to-date furniture. 
In the brood chamber there are movable frames 
into which the bees build the combs where the young 
are reared. With the introduction of these movable 
frames by Langstroth, fifty years ago, a new era in 
bee culture began. The furniture of the second- 
story rooms consists of rows of little section boxes, 
empty at first, but ready to be stored with comb 
honey. When nectar is plentiful and the brood- 
chambers are full to overflowing with honey, the 
workers are quick to take the hint and begin to 
store their surplus in the section boxes. 

You will notice that there is just one entrance 
to the hive. This front door is sacred to the occu- 
pants. W^hen going among his hives, the bee-keeper 
who knows his place keeps to the rear. If you 
respect their privacy to this extent, the bees will 



304 OUTDOOR WORK 

come out in front, rise, and sail off above your head 
without taking the slightest notice of you. 

WHAT GOES ON IN THE BROOD CHAMBER? 

Bees are the most public-spirited of creatures. 
They devote their time to the service of their colony. 
Their industries are all directed towards one end: 
the increase of the number of bees in the world. 
When the hive gets too full of bees, the colony 
divides and a "swarm'* is the result. Thus two 
colonies are established where there was but one, 
and the number of individuals goes on increasing 
twice as fast. 

The honey bee, like its wild cousin the bumble 
bee, passes through four changes of form during its 
development. These are the egg, the larva, the 
pupa, and the adult. The queen is no ruler, but she 
is the mother-bee, and upon her depends the future 
of the bee colony. Dealers in bees rear some of 
her young before selling each queen, in order to be 
sure that she has mated with a pure-blooded drone. 
These are called tested queens. Their progeny 
can be depended upon to possess the good qualities 
of both parents. If the eggs of fine Italian queens 
develop into nervous, lazy, black-coated, and black- 
tempered workers, you may safely say, "They 



KEEPING BEES 305 

take after their father's family." The egg-lay- 
ing begins in the spring and at the height of 
honey harvest the queen bee may lay as many 
as three thousand eggs every day. She hurries 
over the open comb inserting her body into the 
empty cells, and leaves an egg stuck fast at the 
bottom of each. 

The worker bees grow from egg to maturity in 
small, hexagonal, or worker cells. Three or four 
days in the egg, six days as a footless grub or larva 
floating serenely in a tiny well of liquid food sup- 
plied her by the nurse bees, twelve days wrapped in 
a silk coverlet of her own spinning, the young 
worker bee passes through her four stages of growth. 
At the end of her three weeks some inner impulse 
tells her to be up and doing, and she obeys the stern 
call. She cuts a hole in the cap of her cell, sheds 
her skin for the last time (she did this five or six 
times during the larval or growing stage), and comes 
forth. It takes her about one day to dry her 
"feathers," adjust herself to her environment, and 
"get busy." She finds many little open wells of 
unsealed honey, and as nobody pays any attention 
to her she drinks her fill. A round of duties await 
her, and she goes at them without being told how. 
She must do nursing, comb -building, cell-capping, 



306 OUTDOOR WORK 

and general housework, and all without the least 
training. After about a week of this, the young 
worker goes out to play, and then to work. She 
is young, inexperienced, and self-conceited, and tries 
to call attention to herself like any vain young miss. 
When she brings in her first load of pollen she fairly 
swaggers with importance. Mr. Root says, *'Her 
first load of pollen is just what the first pair of pants 
is to a boy baby." 

When a bee is a month old, she is in the prime of 
life. Three or four months of hard work in summer 
means old age for the workers, but in the bee colony 
there is no such thing as an old ladies' home. With 
their wings worn to stumps, their once velvety 
backs rubbed shiny, they may be seen creeping away 
from the hive to die, having given their very lives 
in willing and faithful service of the common- 
wealth. 

Of the unexplained wonders of the development 
of queens and drones, the mystery of the laying 
workers, and the other many and varied activities 
of the hive, we cannot tell much in detail here. 
Your own book on bee-keeping and larger books 
of reference will be mines of information. But 
there are undiscovered North Poles in the bee world, 
and the young bee-keepers of to-day may be the 



KEEPING BEES 307 

Greeleys and the Pearys and the Shackletons of this 
new-old science. 

SWARMING 

Did you ever wonder why bees swarm? They 
have no regular dates for doing things. Although 
they have been known to swarm in May, and even in 
April, you are not likely to get a swarm before June. 
Early swarms are the most valuable, therefore you 
should be ready, for bees are like time and tide. 
Have the hive fitted with frames and keep it in a 
cool place. Bees swarm to increase the number of 
colonies. The date of swarming depends on local 
conditions and nobody can tell but the bees them- 
selves, and they won't, what these conditions are 
exactly. If there are too many bees, too much honey 
stored, thousands of workers hatching daily, many 
young queens ready to emerge, the bees are likely 
to swarm. The bee-keeper is on the lookout after he 
knows the signs and can guess pretty shrewdly 
whether the swarm will be out in a few days or later. 
He gets his apparatus together and his hives ready. 
Bees often "hang out" on the outside of the hive, 
and we used to think that was a "sure sign," but it 
often fails. 

It is the old queen that leaves the hive, but the 



308 OUTDOOR WORK 

bees that go out with her are a mixture of young 
and old ones. No one knows how the decision is 
made as to who shall go and who shall stay behind, 
but there is never any indecision in the community 
that we can reckon with. 

Some hot Sunday you will be roused from your 
book by the excited cry: "The bees! Look, there 
they go ! The air's full of them. They're swarming. 
I'll bet they get away. No, they're settling." 
Meantime, if you are the boy who owns the bees, 
you are getting ready to hive your first swarm. 

It's no joke, for thrills will be chasing up your 
spine, and if you didn't have so much to do you 
would be as excited as the rest. But success may 
depend on your keeping cool. You have probably 
already instructed the family in modern methods 
so that no one will be raising a din by beating an 
old wash boiler, etc. If you have a garden hose 
handy, let some one play a fine spray on the whirling 
bees. Nothing brings them to time more quickly. 
When the bees have settled, place the hive con- 
veniently near them, with a sheet or hive cover in 
front. Cut the branch on which the bees are clus- 
tered and shake them off into or in front of the hive. 
If well disposed they will go in promptly. 

If high trees and no shrubbery is the rule in the 



KEEPING BEES 309 

vicinity of your hives, you "will probably need your 
long-handled swarm-catcher. Or you will very soon 
begin the practice of clipping the wings of your 
queens. When the clipped queen brings out a 
swarm she hops about near the hive. She may 
climb into a shrub if one is near by. Why not 
provide her with a still more convenient forked stick 
as some bee-keepers do? She climbs up this, calls 
her family together, and you do the rest. You may 
prefer to capture the queen in your little queen 
trap, and place her at the entrance to a new hive 
which you should place on the stand where the old 
hive was. The bees will return to their old loca- 
tion when they discover that the queen is not with 
them. The new hive will receive them and the 
queen when released will go in with her family. 
If the bees refuse to stay in the new hive, it may be 
because the hive is too hot. Prop up both hive and 
cover to allow extra ventilation. 

MAKING APPARATUS 

While I do not advise any amateur bee-keeper 
to try to construct his own hives and frames, I do 
think it is a fine idea to begin right away to study 
how to improve the appliances now in use. You 
will have to discard many of your own ideas as 



310 OUTDOOR WORK 

useless when you come to try to apply them to 
practical use. There are lots of patented appli- 
ances for sale that make an experienced bee-keeper 
smile. He undoubtedly knows a clever boy at home 
who can rig up a home-made contraption that will 
cost nothing at all, and do the work better than the 
expensive tool. A boy that keeps bees will find 
a knowledge of tools and wood-working of great 
advantage to him, and a girl's deft fingers will 
know how to put materials together that a pro- 
fessional would never think of. 

In this connection I will here describe a swarm- 
catcher, devised by a practical bee-keeper many 
years ago and recommended by an expert in Api- 
culture of the United States Department of 
Agriculture. The construction is so simple that I 
believe I could make one myself! Though home- 
made, it is interesting to see how thoroughly 
scientific are the essential features of this device, all 
based on a knowledge of bee instincts. 

This description is adapted from an article by Dr. 
B. N. Gates in one of the annual reports of the Mary- 
land Bee-Keepers' Association. The accompany- 
ing drawing was made from a picture of the swarm- 
catcher in the same report. The apparatus consists 
of a box with one end open and supported on a pole. 



KEEPING BEES 311 

The materials required are nails, a large wire hook, 
some thin boards, and two or three poles of differ- 
ent lengths. A saw, a bit and brace, and a hammer 
are the only tools required for making it. 

It is bee nature to try to get into some small 

hole. To take advantage 
of this instinct the five 
sides of the swarm-catcher 
are perforated with holes 
about one half an inch in 
diameter. While the frame- 
work of the box should be 
light, it should also be 
strong and the materials 
good so that the swarm- 
catcher will last for years. 
A convenient size has 
been found to be eight by 
eight by sixteen. A hole 
to fit the size of the poles 
should be bored in the 
centre of the top and one at 
the bottom. The big wire 
hook should be screwed 




Swarm-catcher that works like 
magic. Any handy boy can 



make it 



into the top far enough from the centre so that it will 
not be interfered with by the projecting end of the 



312 OUTDOOR WORK 

pole. A slot should be cut lengthwise of the top, 
sufficiently large to allow a frame of honey-comb to 
be put in so that it hangs down inside to attract 
the bees. This honey bait is essential to the suc- 
cessful working of the swarm-catcher. You can 
devise other ways of suspending it to the top inside 
of the box. It is thought that a coat of green paint 
on the outside and one of black on the inside induces 
the bees to enter the box more readily. 

A swarm-catcher like this cuts out all the loss of 
time and danger of losing a valuable swarm of bees 
while preparations to hive them are going on. And 
you can practically catch a swarm anywhere with 
this device. If they light on a stone wall, a tree 
trunk, or on the ground, you simply brush a pint or 
so of them into the box, stick the sharp lower end 
of the pole into the ground near by, and go off and 
leave them to go in at their leisure. A whiff or so 
of smoke is needed when you first go up before 
beginning to wield the brush. 

For swarms hanging in the ordinary way from limbs 
of trees or vines, while the bees are clustering, take 
a frame from one of the hives and hang it in the 
swarm-catcher. It is best to take a comb containing 
developing brood and some honey. This forms a 
well-nigh irresistible lure for the swarming bees, 



KEEPING BEES 313 

One look at the pendant mass of bees will tell you 
what length of pole you need in the- box. Put 
on your veil and gloves and hoist the box up into 
the tree. Put the open end of the box up against 
the mass of bees and get as many of them into it or 
onto it as possible. Catch the branch with the 
hook on the box and give it a vigorous shaking. 
This unsettles the rest of the bees and they will 
be attracted instinctively to follow the rest into the 
box where the brood cells are. Once the bees are 
safely clustered in and on the box there is no rush 
about hiving them. They are safe to be left hang- 
ing by the hook within ten feet or so of their origi- 
nal clustering place or with the pole stuck in the 
ground near by. They are secure there for hours, 
even for days, but one usually has time to hive them 
the same day. The swarm should not be left in 
the hot sun. 

Hiving is done in the usual way. After the hive 
is prepared with combs or foundation, shake the 
bees from the swarm-catcher either into or in front 
of the hive. With large swarms it is advisable 
to prop the hive body up slightly from the bottom 
board to enlarge the entrance. The "marching 
in" is a wonderful sight. 

An established colony of bees cannot be moved 



314 OUTDOOR WORK 

five feet without causing them confusion. Before 
the newly hived bees have had time to locate them- 
selves and set to work at honey gathering, the hive 
should be moved to its permanent location. It 
is not safe to delay longer than twilight of the day 
they are hived. When once they get a location 
fixed they return to it and are lost. 

If they refuse to be reconciled in a new hive, put 
in a frame of young brood from some other hive and 
try them again. They seldom desert an obvious 
duty like the caring for young. 

OPENING THE HIVE 

The modern art of bee-keeping was made pos- 
sible by the invention of the hive with movable 
frames. Some of the many reasons for opening the 
hive are: 

1. To take off honey. 

2. To see if enough honey has been stored for 
winter. 

3. To find the queen. 

4. To introduce a new queen. 

5. To examine the brood. 

Before opening the hive know just what you are 
going to look for. Get the smoker well going; 
shavings, punk, excelsior, or chips crowded in make 



KEEPING BEES 315 

a good smudge; you want much smoke and little 
fire. Put on your bee veil. For a greeting, blow 
a little smoke in at the entrance of the hive you are 
going to open. Loosen the cover which you will 
find to be glued tight with propolis by the bees. 
A dull putty knife or screw-driver is a good tool 
for this job. As fast as you unseal the cracks, 
blow smoke into them. At this juncture it is well 
to close the hive for a few minutes to give the bees 
time to "think it over." The better the grade of 
bees the less smoke is required. Take your time. 
Keep your nerve steady and the smoker handy. 
Loosen the frames and take them out one by one. 
In order to see what is going on in the frames you 
must clear off the bees. Do this in such a way that 
you will not endanger the queen if she should be 
on the frame. Poke the bees off so that they fall 
bewildered back into the hive. Set the frame down 
against the outside of the hive and take out another. 
There are cells of three sizes in the brood combs. 
Queen cells are large, standing out from the surface 
of the comb quite prominently. The drone and 
worker closely resemble one another, but the 
drone cells are the larger. Honey is stored in 
both drone and worker cells. If you wish to des- 
troy the queen cells to prevent swarming you will 



316 OUTDOOR WORK 

find it a ticklish job, even with a sharp, slender 
knife, not to ruin a lot of comb. 

It is often important to locate the queen. If 
you wish to clip her wings, find her you must. She 
is usually near the middle of the hive, surrounded 
by her court, a rosette of workers. She is quite 
different in shape from the workers. It is well to 
study her picture before going to look for her. A 
queen's wings are not much to cut, but you will 




Drone and queen trap at hive entrance 

need a steady nerve if you do it free hand. Many 
devices are to be had to make the operation less 
difficult and to insure safety to the rest of the 
queen. The danger is all to her, for although she 
is armed she will not sting you. She reserves her 
sting for some rival in her own class. 

Harvesting any crop has interesting features, 
but nothing has the peculiar charm of taking off 



KEEPING BEES 317 

honey. Loosen the cover, puff in a little smoke, 
lift the cover, then the whole super off. Put on 
a new super and replace the cover. Have your 
bee brush ready and as you lift the fitted sections 
out of the super, brush the bees that cling to them 
down to the entrance to the hive. This is the old 
way and is fraught with dangers. Moreover, the 
bees may regard one robbery as suflScient excuse 
for another. Robbery is a serious matter in the 
apiary. The modern way is to use the Porter 
bee-escape. This device obviates all the difficulties 
and once you have " got the hang of it," you will have 
no further trouble getting honey from your hives. 

stings: prevention and cure 

The bee mittens, the veil, and the smoker are all 
preventive measures. A good deal depends on the 
way you behave when working with bees. If you 
are nervous and anxious you probably will act that 
way and the bees have a way of understanding and 
are likely to find you. 

Remove the sting by a scraping motion with a 
knife blade or some hive tool you happen to have 
handy. If you use the thumb and finger you squeeze 
the tiny bulb at the outer end of the sting, and 
inject the poison into your blood. 



318 OUTDOOR WORK 

Experts have little or no faith in cures which are 
rubbed on. They underestimate the comfort one 
gets "doing something" for a spot that hurts so 
mighty bad. So go ahead and put on alcohol 
or baking soda or ammonia; you can't do a bit 
of harm that way. In the meantime nature 
is busy neutralizing the acid the bee punished 
you with. 

Mrs. Comstock, in "How to Keep Bees,'* gives 
these maxims for opening the hive: 

Have the smoker ready to give forth a good 
volume of smoke. 

Use the smoker to scare the bees rather than to 
punish them. 

Do not stand in front of the hive lest the bees 
passing out and in take umbrage. 

Be careful not to drop any implements with 
which you are working; take hold of all things 
firmly. 

Move steadily and not nervously. 

Do not run if frightened, for the bees understand 
what running away means as well as you do. 

If the bees attack you, move slowly away, smok- 
ing them off as you go. 

If a bee annoys you by her threatening attitude 
for some time, kill her ruthlessly. 



KEEPING BEES 319 

WINTERING 

Before buying your hives you must decide where 
your bees are to winter. If you have a suitable 
shelter you can use the ordinary hives; but if your 
bees are to winter outside, you may decide that you 
want the great chaff-packed, double hives. As the 
summer wanes every hive must be examined to 
make sure that the colony is strong and that the 
supply of honey is not short. If the season has been 
a bad one for flowers, or if the region provides few 
blossoming fields it may be necessary to feed the 
bees. Special directions are needed and any bee 
book will supply them. A strong swarm, supplied 
with twenty-five pounds to thirty-five pounds of 
honey, will winter without serious loss in a chaff 
hive. Other protection than that afforded by a good 
windbreak is unnecessary. In our furnace-heated 
houses no part of the cellar is cool enough all the 
time for the bees. The temperature should not go 
above forty-eight degrees Fahr., nor below forty 
degrees; forty-three degrees is considered just right. 
Sudden changes are bad for bees. 

Many experienced bee-keepers winter their col- 
onies successfully outdoors with home-made pro- 
tection. The ordinary hives, with the covers on 
but with the supers off, of course, are put into winter 



320 OUTDOOR WORK 

quarters in this way : Fold seven or eight thicknesses 
of newspaper over the top of the cover and sides. 
Make a neat job of this as if you intended to send 
the box by mail. Use a few tacks if needed. Over 
this fold a large piece of tar or other waterproof 
paper. There is a right way to fold the ends of this 
outer wrapper, and a wrong way. The illustration 




Beehive covered with newspapers and waterproof paper 
for wintering outdoors 

shows the right way. If the paper is brought down 
from the top first and round the ends from the 
sides over that (the wrong way), pockets will be 
formed which hold snow and water. Nail thin 
pieces of wood on to hold the folds securely. The 



KEEPING BEES 321 

entrance to the hive should not be closed as bees 
come out more or less on warm days in winter. Be 
sure that the entrance is always free from dead bees. 
Another way to protect hives from the cold when 
wintering outside is to construct a packing case 
three and a half inches bigger in all dimensions 
than the hive. Set one of these down over each hive 
and pack the space between hive and case with any 
kind of dry packing material, such as shavings, saw- 
dust, cork chips, dry leaves. Any of these materials 
used wet would do more harm than good. Some 
sort of shelf or projection should be so placed over 
the entrance as to keep it open as with other forms 
of winter protection. 

FEEDING 

In the spring, bees need water. If the tree 
blossoms are late in coming out, sirup is often fed 
to the bees to give them a start. Patented feeding 
devices are not necessary. A flat tin pan works ad- 
mirably. The best sirup for all purposes is plain 
granulated sugar and water, made cold. Stir in all 
the sugar that the water will hold. Fill the feeding 
pan with excelsior first, then sirup, and place it in 
the super. Little ladders leading up to the top of 
the pan will help the bees get at the sirup. 



322 OUTDOOR WORK 

Feeding is also practised in the fall if the amount 
of stored honey is short. The feeding of honey is 
likely to start the bees to robbing. Under no cir- 
cumstances should "market" honey be fed to bees. 
Diseases are transmitted by this practice. 

PLANTS THAT FURNISH HONEY OR POLLEN OR BOTH 



gill-over-the-ground 


elm 


shadbush 


maple 


tulip tree 


dandelion 


willow 


hawthorn 


grape 


red bud 


sorrel 


fruit trees 


clovers (cultivated) 


fig-wort 


alfalfa 


locust 


wild sweet clover 


basswood 


raspberry 


catnip 


bee-balm 


horse mint 


blueberry 


mustard 


chestnut 


sage 


corn 


sumach 


buckwheat 


smartweed 


spider flower 


milkweed 


sunflowers 


golden-rod 


fireweed 


aster 




rape 



sprmg. 



summer. 



faU. 



THE PRODUCTS OF THE HIVE 

Besides honey, bees make use of wax to construct 
combs, bee-bread for larvae food, and propolis for 
glue. If you think the bees gather honey from the 



KEEPING BEES 323 

flowers you are greatly mistaken. Nobody knows 
yet quite how honey is made. Chemists say that 
it has in it water, grape sugar, a little formic acid, 
some mineral matter, albuminoids, and essential 
oils. But this list leaves us little the wiser. No 
chemist has been able to combine these materials 
into honey. The nectar gathered by bees passes 
directly into a receptacle, the honey-sack or honey- 
stomach, which is used for that purpose only. It 
does not go the same road as the bee's food. The 
notion that bees swallow the nectar and then un- 
swallow it is as erroneous as it is unappetizing. The 
flavour, body, and colour of honey depend on the 
source of the nectar, the age, the amount of chemical 
change wrought by the bees, and the completeness 
of the ripening process which goes on in the hive 
before the cells are capped. Honey is a very whole- 
some sweet, far more easily digested than cane or 
grape sugar. 

If the making of honey is mysterious, what can 
we say of wax production? In the height of the 
honey season we can watch the bees making wax 
through a glass-sided hive. Mrs. Comstock says: 
"A certain number of self -elected citizens gorge 
themselves with honey and hang up in chains or 
curtains, each bee clinging by her front feet to the 



324 OUTDOOR WORK 

hind feet of the one above her, Hke Japanese acro- 
bats; and there they remain sometimes for two days 
until the wax scales appear pushed out from every 
pocket." Sometimes a honey- and pollen-laden 
bee will come home from pasture with flakes of 
wax exuding from the wax plates on her abdomen. 
But this happens only when wax is needed for comb 
making. At other times no amount of honey gorg- 
ing will produce a scrap of wax. Does this not 
hint at mystery and something higher than mere 
intelligence? 

You would think in such a perfectly organized 
community there would be something like special- 
ization. Such appears not to be the case. All the 
workers seem to do all the different kinds of things. 
Let us say a bee goes out and gets a load of honey the 
first thing in the morning. When she comes in she goes 
to the comb to deposit her honey, then to the brood 
cells where she combs the pollen off her legs into a 
cell where it is stored to feed the young bees later. 
Perhaps she sees in passing some cells which need 
capping, does that, then away to gorge herself with 
honey and make wax, then builds her own or her 
neighbour's wax onto the comb. If the day is hot 
it may occur to her and a thousand others to con- 
struct a living fan and keep the air stirring inside 



KEEPING BEES 325 

the hive by waving their wings. In a system like 
this there is no resting, no play, no shirking, no 
specializing. There is always work to do and 
always somebody doing it with a will in the perfect 
socialism. 

Many boys and girls of these days are fortunate 
in having had at school an observation hive. No 
bee-keeper will be long without one if he has any 
curiosity about what is going on in the dark hive, 
or if he is ambitious to solve some of the mysteries. 
An ordinary hive can be made into a good observa- 
tion hive by putting a pane of glass in the sides and 
top. There should be hinged doors to fit tightly 
over the glass. A two-frame hive devised by Prof. 
V. L. Kellogg has both sides of glass so that the whole 
domestic economy of the bee family can readily be 
observed. 

DISEASES AND ENEMIES 

You will not be in the bee business long before 
you learn that bees have diseases and enemies. 
In fact, it is better to face that fact at the beginning 
and learn how to recognize and combat the troubles. 
Carelessness along this line is inexcusable and will 
surely cause failure. Several states have official 
inspectors whose business it is to know bee diseases 



326 OUTDOOR WORK 

and methods of controlling them. He is required 
to inspect apiaries where diseases are suspected, 
and the best thing to do is to interest him in your 
work and get all the help from him you can. An 
ounce of prevention will save a pound of cure, 
every time. 

If there is a Bee-Keepers* Association in your 
county, by all means join it and help make it a live, 
active organization. The United States Department 
of Agriculture can give you much needed information 
as to who the men are in your locality who 
are officers in the associations and official 
inspectors. 

MARKETING HONEY 

The best honey market is the home market as 
I have said. You may have to work up a demand 
in your neighbourhood and there are many ways 
to do this which ingenious boys and girls will devise. 
Most of us, if we can afford to use honey at all, 
know it only as a "spread" for hot biscuits or griddle 
cakes. But not every one knows that honey is a 
very much more wholesome sweet than cane sugar. 
Many people cannot eat sugar at all, but find honey 
does not cause indigestion. If you could persuade 
your neighbours to buy your honey for their 



KEEPING BEES 327 

children instead of candy, " all-day-suckers" coloured 
with cheap dyes, and sirups made of nobody knows 
what, you would be doing something worth while. 

Honey is used in cooking too, in many ways. 
Get your mother or sister interested in trying some 
receipts in which honey takes the place of sugar. 
If you make a success of this you can get other 
people to making honey cakes, thus creating a 
demand for your product. 

One enterprising chap made a great success by 
first going from house to house and giving away 
samples of his honey. He also left a self-addressed 
postal card with prices and order blank printed 
on one side, and nine out of ten of the people he called 
on sent orders. It seemed a pity to waste a good 
postal card and everybody likes to help a bright 
boy along; and beside they wanted the honey! 
It might be well to have a little pamphlet telling 
about your honey and of the many uses it may 
be put to, with a receipt for honey cake, perhaps. 
You will get a reputation, if you try, for pure prod- 
ucts, neat packages and courteous dealings. As 
your output increases from year to year your market 
will grow, until you, like the boy we mentioned at 
the beginning of this chapter, have a business worth 
at least a thousand dollars. 



328 OUTDOOR WORK 

MY EXPERIENCE WITH HONEY BEES 

It was just by chance that I ever got started in 
keeping bees. There were several boys about my 
size in the neighbourhood at my home and we used 
to go swimming and play ball together. One fine 
spring day a few of us were walking down the road 
toward the swimming pool when we found a swarm 
of bees on a fence post. One of the fellows knew 
how to hive the swarm, so we got a box from the 
store and watched while he got the bees into it. 
It was the first time that I had seen a swarm 
hived and the performance proved very interesting 
to me. 

I bought that swarm in the old box for seventy- 
five cents, very well satisfied with the bargain, for 
of course the box would be full of honey in a 
short time! 

The colony was placed upon a bench in the front 
yard. One night the old bull got out and upset 
the bench. The bees were ready to sting anything 
next day. I bundled up until I was sting proof 
and then got them straightened up. The combs 
were broken which gave the bees a setback 
from which they did not recover. I did not get any 
honey from them and they died out in the winter. 



KEEPING BEES 329 

An old bee-keeper who lived near us gave me two 
swarms the next spring. One of them left the hive 
and flew to the woods and the other was weak and 
died. It began to seem as though bees were hard 
to keep. I got a book called "ABC of Bee Culture, " 
and read it. I soon learned that bees should be 
kept in movable frame hives so they could be easily 
handled. 

I had no bees now, but, although we were laughed 
at, my father and I entered into a partnership. 
He furnished the hives and implements and I fur- 
nished the bees and labour. We were to divide 
profits equally. We bought two hives, a smoker, 
and a bee veil. I caught one swarm in the woods 
and bought another. They were both late swarms 
and died in the winter. 

Success was still far off and things did not look 
very bright, but I had learned how not to do lots of 
things. The two hives we had were not the best, 
so we sold them and bought five of a different kind 
for the next spring. The outlay was large and no 
profits, but I w^as determined to succeed. 

In the spring I caught a swarm early in the season 
and it made a few pounds of surplus honey which 
we used at home. During the latter part of August 
my chum and I were out squirrel hunting and he 



330 OUTDOOR WORK 

found a swarm that had built combs on the limb 
of a large tree. We got it into a hive and I bought 
his share of the swarm. This colony needed feeding, 
so I fed it on sugar and water. Both colonies lived 
through the winter and made a strong start in the 
spring. Each gave a swarm and I caught both. 

The book and the old bee-keeper taught me that 
Italian bees were better than the wild bees, so I 
invested in two Italian queens which I got by mail 
from a queen breeder. I killed the old queens in 
two of the colonies and introduced the new ones. 
They did some good work that summer and lived 
through the winter. The next spring I had two 
colonies of black or wild bees and two of Italians. 
The blacks together made about twenty pounds of 
surplus honey, while the two Italians made nearly 
two hundred pounds. This showed me that there 
was a great difference in bees. Each colony swarmed 
once, making eight in all. 

We had now made a success and the business was 
on a good footing even after four years of failure. 
That last honey crop was worth about thirty dollars, 
and the bees and hives were worth about forty -five 
dollars. We were encouraged. 

That fall I was sixteen years old and had decided 
to go to college. The president of the agricultural 



KEEPING BEES 331 

college in this state offered me a chance to work 
my way through college by taking charge of the bees 
on the college farm. I gladly accepted it and sold 
my bees at home. 

Life at college was very different from home life, 
but the bees always furnished a source of pleasure 
and recreation during my spare moments on week 
days and on Saturdays. In the summer months I 
either worked with the government bee-men or 
for the college. 

The bees have not only given me lots of pleasure, 
but they have made it possible for me to pay my 
entire tuition and expenses for five years at college. 
Besides studying and attending to my bees, I have 
had time for much other fun, and this year I made 
the 'varsity football team and played in every game. 

Some people think that the honey is not worth 
the stings, but my advice is to get a colony and try 
your hand. 

Sydney S. Stabbler 

how i earned two hundred dollars 

I had helped with the bees more or less all my 
life, so that I already knew how to handle them when 
my high school course was broken into by illness 
and I had an enforced vacation of one year and a 



332 OUTDOOR WORK 

half. I was able at this time to devote to the bees 
one full season, that is, from April through July. 

My father allowed me the use of bees, hives, 
combs, etc., for queen rearing. The queens I sold 
for seventy-five cents and one dollar each, ac- 
cording to the grade. To my father I fur- 
nished one hundred queens at the reduced price 
of fifty cents each as rent for the bees, hives, 
etc. I had about ninety nuclei of two frames 
each. During the swarming season I used a good 
many natural cells from the better colonies. Later 
I used artificial, dipped cells which I made myself. 
In the latter case I took larvae from the very best 
queens in the apiary and placed the cells in queenless 
colonies to be developed, or sometimes in colonies 
which were superseding their queens. When the 
cells were nearly ready to hatch they were placed 
in the nuclei where the young queens remained 
until they commenced laying, when they were ready 
for sale. 

Altogether I made a little over one hundred dol- 
lars that season. I was then eighteen years old and 
determined to go to college. Two years later I 
began my studies at the University of California, 
working for my board in a private family and 
drawing from the one hundred dollars for incidentals. 



KEEPING BEES 333 

Clothing I had received at home and had made 
myself for the most part. 

The San Francisco earthquake occurred on the 
eighteenth of April, in the spring of my freshman 
year, and college was closed immediately, so that I 
was able to enter again into the queen rearing 
business. That season I sent out advertising cards 
to the members of the California Bee-Keepers' 
Association and sold nearly all my queens to them. 
The financial result was nearly the same as for the 
former season. 

So in all I made about two hundred dollars, which 
paid for the incidentals during three years of my 
college career which is as far as I have gone. By 
"incidentals" I mean books, paper, and such ne- 
cessities, also subscriptions to the college daily 
paper, class and association dues, tickets to college 
jinks, theatricals, games, etc. I also spent a good 
deal for tickets to concerts, plays, etc., as that was 
my first opportunity to hear the great musicians and 
actors and I considered that a part of my education. 

Flora McIntyre 

profits of bee-keeping 

I have been asked to tell something of my early 
experiences as a bee-keeper, for boys and girls who 



334 OUTDOOR WOIll^- 

may become interested in this very fascinating, and, 
I may say at the same time, profitable, pursuit. 

I think it may be said of bee-keeping as sailors 
say of seafaring — once a bee-keeper always a bee- 
keeper. 

I should like to tell you in a few words what can 
be expected from a dozen and a half hives of bees 
with an average of one and one half days a week 
spent in the apiary. I believe really, though, that 
when I began keeping bees it was not because I 
expected to make much money. The whole story 
of the bee life, as read from difiFerent books which 
I secured after becoming interested, was so won- 
derful and fascinating that I could hardly wait 
until spring so that I might study the two hives 
acquired through the winter. That first spring 
and summer there were only those old box hives, 
which could not be opened for inside study, and all 
observations had to be confined to watching the 
bees from the outside. The next summer some 
modern hives that could be taken apart and every 
nook and corner laid open to observation were 
bought. In the fall I was very fortunate in securing 
eighteen colonies of bees at an auction sale, paying 
therefor only fifty cents a colony, much to my sat- 
isfaction and my neighbours' amusement. Most 



KEEPING BEES 335 

of the hives were frame, but of an undesirable sort 
of frame. The next summer these colonies were 
transferred to up-to-date hives. That summer, 
and for the next succeeding six summers, these 
colonies did not fail to yield on an average about 
seventy dollars' worth of honey and wax. Counting 
out winter losses the number of colonies per year 
would average twelve, the number of pounds of 
honey about three hundred and seventy-five, worth 
twenty cents a pound. The bees received only a 
small part of my time each day. 

Later, when a student at the Ohio State Univer- 
sity, as manager of the apiary there, about the same 
results were obtained, so that an average of about 
five dollars a hive is a conservative estimate. If 
one begins in a small way, in a few years he should 
be able to manage one hundred colonies. But it 
should be remembered that the yield per hive may 
decrease somewhat as the number of colonies 
increases, because of the danger of launching in 
the business on a large scale. The best insurance 
against loss is a thorough study and understanding 
of all the details by the practice of bee-keeping on 
a snfall scale for a term of years first. 

I may say that the income from the bees aided 
not a little in helping me through college, and 



336 OUTDOOR WORK 

I may say, also, without exaggeration that this 
interest in bees by one enthusiastic student helped 
in no small degree toward the inauguration of a 
course in bee-keeping at our own Ohio State Uni- 
versity. To make the story complete I think I 
should add that the writer of this article is at pres- 
ent engaged as assistant in apiculture, doing ex- 
perimental work in apiculture in the government 
apiaries at Washington, D. C. 

There is opportunity for those who wish to take 
up some problem relating to apiculture as a subject 
of investigation, and the agricultural colleges and 
experiment stations will no doubt in the future 
give more and more attention to the investigation 
of problems related to this interesting and profitable 

pursuit. 

Arthur H. McCray 



VIII 

RAISING SILKWORMS 

4 LTHOUGH silkworms are not actually 
/ % reared in the open air, there is so much 
-*- ^^ outdoor work and moderate exercise con- 
nected with their care that the subject may properly 
be included in a book on outdoor work. 

The best food for silkworms is the leaf of the white 
mulberry. If you have already a hedge of this or 
several trees you can begin at once. If not, several 
years must elapse while you raise your preliminary 
crop of mulberry trees from seeds or cuttings. It 
is useless to buy silkworm eggs if you have not 
the wherewithal to feed your infant caterpillars. 
You may not think of going into silkworm rearing 
in a commercial way but only as an interesting bit 
of nature study. Why not make up some neat 
attractive cases, each containing a little collection 
illustrating the four stages of the growth of this in- 
sect? Heat a few eggs to destroy life, then glue them 
to a card; preserve a caterpillar in a vial of alcohol; 

337 



338 OUTDOOR WORK 

glue a cocoon to a card; pin and spread two of the 
moths, a male and a female, and pin them into the 
box. From such a box school children will get a far 
more definite idea of insect metamorphosis than 
they will ever get from a book on zoology. Such 
little collections ought to sell well in schools where 
nature study, zoology, or agriculture is taught. 

The mulberry silkworm makes the best silk, 
although it is by no means the only silk-spinning 
insect. Every now and then we read of some one 
who is experimenting with the silk of our American 
or giant silkworms, the Promethea or the Cecropia, 
or with the silk spun by spiders. But none as 
yet compares with Bombyx mori in either quantity 
or quality of its product or in ease of rearing or 
in reeling of the silk. 

The adult moth lays between three and seven 
hundred eggs during the first three days after she 
emerges from her cocoon. In a week or ten days 
she dies, her work finished. Moths in the wild 
state are at some pains to deposit their eggs on the 
favourite food plant of their young, but in the case 
of Bombyx mori this instinct has been lost in the 
countless years of domestication. The eggs, when 
laid, are moist with a sort of glue which secures them 
to the surface upon which they are deposited. The 



RAISING SILKWORMS 339 

winter is passed in the egg stage. A cool, dry place 
is safest for them, where no sudden changes of tem- 
perature are possible. A steady temperature of 
thirty -five degrees is ideal, and they must be enclosed 
in something that is mouse proof, though not air- 
tight. A perforated tin box is right for this purpose. 
Silkworm eggs for study may be obtained from 
dealers in miscellaneous insects, birds, animals, etc. 
As spring approaches you must watch the mul- 
berry leaves and make your preparations. Any 
room in which temperature and ventilation can be 
regulated will serve for rearing silkworms. You 
should have some racks made of lattice work, and 
shelves, open to the air, on which to place them. I 
have seen a clothes-horse, with racks resting upon 
the rungs, used for this. A supply of cheap wrap- 
ping paper or newspapers should be on hand to 
put on the shelves , and some coarse netting, the use 
of which will be described later. Do not make the 
mistake of getting too many eggs. An ounce does 
not seem like very much, but the well-grown worms 
from an ounce of eggs ought to have at least 
seventy -five square yards of shelf space. They will 
require during the first six days only eleven pounds 
of leaves, six meals a day, but during the eight days 
just before spinning they will require over half a ton 



340 OUTDOOR WORK 

of food. Imagine lugging in two hundred weight of 
fresh mulberry leaves five times a day to feed these 
ravenous things so dependent upon you! 




Movable frame and light shelves for feeding silkworms 

Warmth and moisture are required for hatching 
the eggs. As the spring advances and the mulberry 



RAISING SILKWORMS 341 

shows signs of putting forth its leaves, the silkworm 
eggs should be spread thinly on sheets of paper on 
the shelves in a temperature of about fifty-five 
degrees Fahr. The temperature should be increased 
after three or four days and gradually raised to 
seventy -three degrees Fahr. Sprinkle the floor to 
make the air moist, but do not wet the eggs. At 
this temperature hatching will take place after 
about ten days' time. Watch the eggs. When they 
begin to whiten you must get to work, at the first 
worms will soon be out. Take two thicknesses 
of coarse tulle or bobinet cut the size of the racks. 
Chop some young, tender mulberry leaves very fine. 
Scatter a thin layer of these bits over the cloth and 
lightly lay it over the hatching eggs. No sooner 
do the young silkworms become aware of the 
presence of their favourite vegetable than they 
make their way to it, coming up through the holes 
of the bobinet as easily as "rolling off a log." They 
are tiny creatures. Eight of them laid end to end 
would hardly measure an inch. As hatching usually 
takes place in the morning, by ten o'clock the 
worms will all have crawled through the netting to 
the leaves on the upper layer of the net. This can 
now be transferred to the rearing shelf. The net- 
ting should be kept well stretched, as the worms may 



342 OUTDOOR WORK 

be injured if buried down amongst the leaf bits. All 
through life silkworms must be handled with extreme 
care. If necessary to lift any individual from one 
shelf to another it should be done with tenderest 
touch. Rough treatment is fatal. 




A clothes-horse fitted with racks for feeding silkworms. 

For young worms the newly opened leaves are 
the best. As they grow older their tastes change 
and the more mature leaves may be given. A quan- 



RAISING SILKWORMS 343 

tity of leaves may be gathered at one time and kept 
fresh. The leaves themselves should never be put 
into water. Prepare the food by removing the 
foliage you intend to feed from the stems. Then 
chop or cut it into fine shreds. Six times a day a 
small quantity of the prepared leaf should be 
sprinkled lightly over the netting. 

Like other caterpillars, silkworms shed their skins 
at certain intervals. The six-day period between 
hatching and the first moult is called "the first age." 
On the fourth day it is best to change the beds, as 
the droppings from the worms and the litter of 
uneaten leaves are not healthy for the moulting cater- 
pillars. Spread fresh leaves on nets and place over 
the worms in the evening. By morning all will be ready 
for the clean shelf and doubled space. As the sixth 
day approaches, the worms lose appetite and cease 
to move about. Finally the skin whitens, the head 
seems to grow larger, and each little creature pulls 
himself out of his old skin and finds himself clad 
in a new suit. I imagine he must feel very much as 
a boy does when on the first really warm day in April 
his mother allows him to shed his winter underwear, 
get his hair cut short, and wear his summer 
blouse and knickers. 

The young worm, however, does not feel very 



344 OUTDOOR WORK 

lively at first. No food should be given for several 
hours. When signs of waking are evident, food should 
be given and the worms transferred to clean shelves 
by means of the nets. On the third day they should 
be changed to fresh papers. Four meals a day are 
needed by the caterpillars at this time. The second age 
is shorter than the first, being only four or five days. 
The skin now changes in colour from gray to yel- 
lowish white. After the second moult their food need 
not be cut much, but they require a lot of it, as they 
should double their size during the third age, which 
lasts six or seven days. If the weather is pretty 
warm their development is faster. They should 
never be crowded nor allowed to go hungry. Always 
change to clean shelves when the dead leaves and 
excrement become the least offensive. This odour, 
which you can escape by leaving the room, may be 
deadly to your pets. They are helpless to escape 
it, and are entirely at your mercy. 

During the fourth age, {. e., after the third moult, 
give more space and feed small branches with leaves 
on. Always remove every berry from the mulberry 
branches or the worms will eat them and be made 
sick. Their appetites are enormous, their growth 
rapid. Change the beds four times during this 
period of nine days. 



RAISING SILKWORMS 345 

After the fourth moult the worms pass into the 
last age. Five or six days of voracious feeding 
brings them near that most dramatic event in their 
lives— the cocoon spinning. For three days, now, 




A rack or ladder for silkworms to spin on 

instead of eating steadily they wander aimlessly 
about, as if seeking they know not what; they wag 
their heads; they behave in an altogether restless 
and uncertain way. Is it some mortal ailment or 
mere *' weakness of intellect?" You are expecting 



346 OUTDOOR WORK 

this and have prepared for it beforehand. They 
will not need to search long for a place to mount 
and spin in safety and security their cocoon of 
shining silvery silk. Farmers' Bulletin, No. 165, 
recommends the use of small, clean, leafless brush 
tied together into bundles and fastened between the 
shelves in rows a foot or so apart. Some use a sort 
of rack or ladder of narrow strips of wood which 
should be placed upright on the shelf where the 
worms can easily find it. They spin between the 
slats. Any worms which seem not to be ready to spin 
with the others should be fed until they, too, feel the 
impulse to travel. 

As the process of spinning takes some hours, 
there will be no difficulty in observing it from 
start to finish. You are entitled to this exhibition, 
for, without your constant care and feeding, 
these creatures would not have been able to 
develop. The dull, inactive silkworm has ac- 
quired wonderful agility, and without practice is 
able to weave himself into his sleeping bag 
with astonishing celerity, reeling out his twelve 
hundred or sixteen hundred yards of silk in one 
continuous thread. There are no knots or kinks 
in it. It is inaccurate as well as rather silly 
to refer to the cocoon as a shroud or burial casket, 



RAISING SILKWORMS 347 

as some do. The creature inside is just as much 
ajive as ever it was. 

The cocoons with the live pupse inside are called 
green cocoons. To prepare them for market they 
are usually subjected to heat either in the oven 
or by steaming. No water should touch the co- 
coons, neither should the oven be hot enough to 
brown them. After heating they should be dried 
in the sun or other heat. Open one when you think 
they may be dry; if they are, the pupae inside can 
be rubbed into powder with the fingers. A good 
price per pound is paid for dried cocoons, but it takes 
five hundred or more to weigh a pound. 

If you have never seen a moth emerge from its 
cocoon you should keep several of your cocoons. 
In eighteen or twenty days the moth comes out, usual- 
ly in early morning. Invite your friends to have a 
look, too. Must the moth break the threads in 
getting out, or is the cocoon woven in a manner 
to provide a gateway when it shall be needed .f* 
How does the creature get out anyway, and what 
is it like when it first arrives in the open? Wonder- 
ful happenings must have been going on inside to 
make a winged moth out of that naked caterpillar. 
Something left in the cocoon rattles when you shake 
it. Examine the dried ball and you will recognize 



348 OUTDOOR WORK 

in it the cast-off clothes, hat, coat, socks, and boots 
that he had on when he shut himself in. There, too, 
is the brown shell he wore as a pupa. You may 
think you know these things by reading about them, 
but you do not, really. Hearsay is not the real 
thing in any realm of life, least of all in the realm 
of nature. 



IX 

MAKING COLLECTIONS 
PIxA.NTS 

COLLECTING plants has always been an 
important feature of practical scientific 
work. Great sums of money and many 
years of time have been spent in searching through 
little-explored countries for new plants. Agents of 
many governments, representatives of great nursery 
companies of this and other countries are all the time 
looking, looking, often at the cost of the greatest 
hardship, for new plants. Why is this? Not as you 
will readily conclude, merely to add new specimens 
to museum collections, nor merely to find and name a 
new species, though some collectors are in the field for 
these purely scientific reasons. But our Department 
of Agriculture is on the lookout for new plants from 
foreign parts which will be commercially valuable 
to us. Our enterprising nurserymen are after the 
same game. At the present time very great interest 
is being taken in plants from western China, a vast 

S49 



350 OUTDOOR WORK 

and little-explored region. Strangely enough, the 
plants from that far away country seem to be pe- 
culiarly fitted to thrive here, and while the govern- 
ment and the nurserymen are telling the people 
about these new plants, the botanists are trying to dis- 
cover the reasons why Asiatic plants fit our condi- 
tions better than the plants of Europe seem to. 

The making of collections of plants, then, is a 
big, important work, and well worth the while of any 
boy or girl. If you would read stories of exciting 
adventures, narrow escapes, thrilling encounters 
amid romantic surroundings, read some of the ac- 
counts of scientific explorations. The collectors 
of plants and insects in the Philippines, Central 
Asia, little-known islands of the far East, and such 
*'wild nations," must needs be men of valour, and 
to know any one of them is a liberal education. 

Making a collection of plants is probably not the 
best way to arouse an interest in outdoor life. 
Indeed it was made such a deadly dull business for 
me that my early interest was entirely "nipped in 
the bud" and lay dormant many, many years. Col- 
lecting is one of the recognized and useful ways of 
introducing ourselves to our neighbours of the 
vegetable kingdom. Living in a plant-infested world 
as we are elected to do, eating plants, wearing their 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 351 

products, utilizing them in all our arts, buying and 
selling them daily, unable to get through an hour of 
the day without being constantly reminded of our 
entire dependence upon the members of the vege- 
table kingdom, what is more natural than that we 
should wish to know them? To know their names 
is not the end and aim of plant study. The name 
is a convenient handle for a plant. It enables you 
to talk about the plant to others without the neces- 
sity of a lengthy description. It enables you to read 
understandingly what other students have said about 
the plant in books. It is only the beginning, like the 
introduction to a stranger. To make of a stranger 
a friend, you must know something of his family, 
of his relation to the rest of the world, how he lives, 
gets a living, how he makes use of his faculties, what 
are his peculiarities, his habits, his environment, in 
fact all about him. In discovering the name of a 
plant by use of a botanical key you learn a few but 
not all of these things. 

As with some people so with some plants, the more 
you know of them the less you think of them; the 
less you wish to have to do with them. Take poison 
ivy for an example. Knowing its characteristics 
you pass it by without touching it. You observe it 
from afar oiBf, so as to be able to warn others of its 



352 OUTDOOR WORK 

whereabouts. On the other hand, if you had only 
known well the giant puff-ball you so wantonly 
crushed under your heel, you might have enjoyed 
a delicious supper of creamed mushrooms. 

Making a collection of plants is an extremely 
simple job. The materials needed are not expensive 
nor hard to get. Here is a list of what is required 
for a beginner's collection: 

(1) A dozen or so newspapers. 

(2) Driers, two or three dozen, 12 x 18 inches. 

(3) Two boards, 12 x 18 inches. 

(4) A stone of twenty to thirty pounds weight. 

(5) Mounting paper. 

(6) Genus covers. 

Cut the newspapers into half sheets. Each speci- 
men is to be placed in a folded piece of this. The 
driers may be cheap blotting paper or pieces of carpet 
felt, cut to the desired size. 

Arrange a specimen just as it was taken from the 
ground, inside of one of the half pages of newspaper. 
While it is not desirable to put too much time on 
the arrangement of each specimen, it is as well to 
place it in a natural position and in such a way that 
the leaves will not lie all over each other and the 
flowers be crowded so that the appearance will be 
awkward. But do not overdo this : if a flower droops 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 353 

naturally, do not make it stick upright. With 
one of the boards as a foundation build your pile 
of pressing plants up as follows: Lay on two or 
more driers, then a folded newspaper holding a 
specimen, then a drier or two. (If the specimen is 
a juicy thing, several blotters are needed between 
it and the next one.) Now another specimen, a 
drier, a specimen, etc., until you are through with 
the day's collecting, or until the pile begins to topple. 
Finish with a drier, then put on the other board, and 
weight it with your big stone. 

The driers must be changed every day. Do not 
disturb the specimens, but lift each folded news- 
paper from the old to the new pile, building up with 
fresh driers as before. In a week or ten days most 
plants will be thoroughly dry. If at all moist they 
are likely to mould after being mounted and your 
work will be spoiled. A dried specimen is brittle and 
needs careful handling. 

Mounting paper, to be standard and uniform, 
should be white, plain paper of a very heavy quality. 
It costs a cent a sheet, size eleven and one half by 
sixteen and one fourth inches. No other size would 
be acceptable if you wish at some later time to donate 
your collection to the local museum or to sell it to 
some school. 



354 OUTDOOR WORK 

There are several ways of fastening specimens to 
the sheet. Some like to use little strips of gummed 
paper or court-plaster, but old-fashioned glue is 
about the most satisfactory stuff. It is mussy to 
work with till you get your hand in, but it holds the 
plants fast to the sheet, and "that's the intintion." 
It is best to keep the specimens in the newspaper 
wrappers until you have a lot ready to mount. 
Then with a pot of glue, a dry cloth, a damp one, 
and a small brush you are ready for business. Lift 
the specimen from the newspaper and lay it first 
on the mounting sheet to get some idea beforehand 
of how you will place it. You may have to prune 
it some to get it all on, but this is not likely as your 
drying sheets are the same size as your mounting 
paper. Having decided at what angle to place it, 
lay the specimen back on the newspaper upside 
down. With your brush wet, but not dripping, with 
glue, brush the stems, buds, leaves, and flowers 
lightly over the back. Lift it again, turning it over 
as you transfer it to the white sheet. With a light 
pressure make the parts fast and lay the sheet 
aside for the glue to dry. 

Small specimens should occupy a place just a little 
below the centre of the sheet, and if more than one 
specimen is required to show all parts they may be 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 



355 




H 


.-.». 


■ «„,. 


••«*• 


■?. 


,..^., 


n» <»• 


»»f(\.,^ . 




J^-.'.. 


>--'VY 


/•'- 


.i.u/n% 


". H !• 




»>»V>. 



Plants should be mounted on paper 16j<^ x llH inches 



356 OUTDOOR WORK 

arranged on the sheet as their various shapes and 
sizes look best. 

A few facts should accompany each plant to re- 
fresh your memory of that specimen when you come 
to study it later. These facts should have been re- 
corded by you in whatever way you like and re- 
ferred to the specimen by a number while in the 
press. Finally each mounted specimen should have 
its label, bearing the name of the plant, the collector's 
name, the date collected, locality, and any useful 
information regarding it. Glue the label into the 
lower right-hand corner, which should always be 
reserved for that purpose. 

These loose sheets, covered with mounted speci- 
mens, must not be allowed to lie in a shelf or drawer 
unprotected. Each group of them should be put 
into a folded sheet of manilla paper. Such a holder 
is called a "genus cover." Its size, folded, is eleven 
and three fourths by sixteen and one half inches. 

This word "genus" suggests that in time the 
collector is going to be able so to classify his speci- 
mens that each genus cover may contain only plants 
so closely related one to another that they are 
of the same botanical genus. The beginner need 
not be seriously disturbed if there are many 
plants in his collection that he does not know the 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 357 

names of yet. The collection is for study or it is 
worth nothing. Knowing plants is more important 
than knowing names. You cannot handle plants 
much and observe them in their places without notic- 
ing how different they are. Then you begin to 
see that some are more like than others. This is 
the beginning of classification. You need not know 
even the common names of the plants to do this, 
although you will know some, of course. Professor 
Bailey says: "Learn first to classify plants; names 
will follow. Look for resemblances, and group 
plants round some well-known kind. Look for 
sunflower-like plants, lily-like, rose-like, mint-like, 
mustard-like, pea-like, carrot-like plants. These 
great groups are families." 

After you have handled your common plants a 
good deal you will be surprised to find how easily 
you can guess at one's family, and guess right. 

When you have reached this stage in your collect- 
ing you will feel that you need some book to guide 
you and act as a check on your studies. All the 
books mentioned in the lists in this book are useful 
for beginners. If you find a book which pretends 
to take the place of the plants themselves, you would 
better throw your money away than buy it. In- 
stead of helping it will hinder your progress. You 



358 OUTDOOR WORK 

will find in beginners' botanies what is known as a 
"key." Now, a key is obviously to unlock something 
with. If you had a door key which turned with 
difficulty, or fitted the lock imperfectly you would 
be sure to have it repaired or get a more modem 
one. Some of the old botanical keys seem to be 
rusty and it is difficult to use them. Choose the 
key that works most easily. 

In making a key for classifying plants one begins 
by dividing the whole vegetable kingdom into two 
big departments, thus: 

A. Plants which never have flowers. 
AA. Plants which do have flowers. 

As your specimens are all of the flowering kind 
we shall for the present forget all about the others 
and begin to divide our big group AA into smaller 
groups. This is how it is done: 

AA. Flowering plants. 

B. Flowers not showy, seeds in cones (usually), 
leaves needle — or scale-like, evergreen (usually). 

BB. Flowers showy, seeds not in cones, leaves 
of various shapes, deciduous (usually). 

You will see that in dividing a group it is important 
that A is just the opposite of AA, and B is just the 
opposite of BB, and that the place to look for BB 
is just the same distance over from the margin of 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 359 

the page as B although it may not be on the same 
page, if there are a great many divisions under B. 
These Httle things make the key easier to use than 
the old-fashioned ones were. Some people still use 
botanical keys as mental gymnastics but I do not 
believe in that. After all you are studying plants 
not keys. 

You will want to go back to the group we called 
A, for to the non-flowering plants belong the lovely 
ferns which must certainly grace your collection. 
This is a delightful group to study and it is possible 
with a reasonable amount of persistence and by 
exchanging with fern collectors in other parts of the 
country to get a very nearly if not quite, complete 
collection of native forms. Only one hundred and 
sixty-five of the four thousand species of ferns are 
native to the United States. Such a collection 
should be very valuable. 

Some boys and girls lose interest in collecting 
plants after the first season, especially if they have 
done well the first year and secured most of the 
species in their locality. If the opportunity to 
collect elsewhere does not come the next spring 
there can be nothing more interesting than to try 
to get the same things you already have, but in some 
other stage of their growth. For example: most 



360 OUTDOOR WORK 

collections will have several kinds of violets, blue, 
white and yellow, in all the beauty of their 
flowering. But whoever thought of getting one 
that showed the seed pods? What is a violet's 
seed pod like anyhow? Is the seed pod of the white 
one like that of the yellow? Are the seed pods of 
one plant all alike? When do the pods open and 
how? How do the seeds germinate and when? These 
and other questions are waiting to be answered by 
every plant in your collection. Would it not be 
fine to know the pure white trillium in midsummer 
when it has grown a leaf nearly a foot across and has 
a red fleshy seed case thrust up where it will be con- 
spicuous? Some plants are far more showy in fruit 
than in flower and you will begin to see why these 
and other things are true as you carry on your studies 
throughout the year. 

Many a teacher of botany is forced to depend 
upon pictures when she wishes to teach children to 
discriminate between two kinds of leaves, kinds of 
roots, kinds of stems, kinds of inflorescence. What 
a boon to those teachers would be a collection put 
up to illustrate the lessons as they came along! 
I wonder if there is not a market for such collections 
in schools where no herbariums are made or kept. 

For little children, making blue prints is delightful 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 361 

occupation. I knew a child of four who learned to 
recognize the leaves of most of the common trees 
one spring by means of this work, and she did every 
bit of it alone. A small printing frame, blue print 
paper of the required size, and plenty of water is all 
that is required. A child soon learns to use good 
judgment in printing, exposing the frame just long 
enough to get a fine blue. The outline of the leaf 
comes out distinctly in white against a blue back- 
ground. The prints should be thoroughly washed and 
may be dried on panes of glass. 

The blue prints of leaves and of flowers do not 
show anything but the outlines, of course. Leaf 
prints of other kinds are made which bring out the 
veining as well. The outfit for this work is simple. 
Two print rollers, a pane of glass, and a tube of 
printers' ink, sheets of paper to print upon, and 
leaves. Put a small quantity of the ink on the clean 
glass, and work it into a thin film over the surface. 
Lay a leaf upon this film of ink and go over it with 
the inky roller. Transfer the leaf to a sheet of paper 
and cover with a second sheet. One whirl of the 
clean roller ought to give you the desired print. It is 
surprising how delicate and true these are and how 
perfectly they show the characteristic margin, 
indentations, venation, and even something of the 



362 OUTDOOR WORK 

texture of each leaf. A little practice makes one 
able to make impressions which are like leaf shadows, 
so delicate and lace-like can these prints be made. 
It is an excellent way of fixing the leaf forms in 
the memory, as well as in the note-book. 

In making a collection of plants the same "rules 
of the game" should hold good as in collecting in- 
sects and other natural objects. Take only what 
you need. Do not uproot and leave to die the near 
neighbours of the specimens you select. The taking 
of rare specimens is discouraged. I shall never forget 
the look of indignation our dear old professor gave 
an ambitious youth who had uprooted for his 
paltry collection every plant of a species of rare 
fern which the professor had been trying for years 
to re-establish in its old location. After all is said 
and done, a live plant is better than a dead one. 
This is all a part of the great spirit of conservation 
that has so taken possession of our people of late 
years. Out of these little acts of preserving our 
resources will grow a more beautiful America and a 
better appreciation of all things beautiful. 

COLLECTING SEA-WEEDS 

Every child ought to be familiar with that musical 
poem of Percival's beginning: 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 363 

"Deep in the sea is a coral grove, 

Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove." 

And then when the child grows bigger he should 
have an opportunity to go out in a glass-bottomed 
boat, at Santa Catalina Island or elsewhere, and see 
for himself that those "yellow and scarlet tufts 
of ocean," "bending like corn on the upland lea," 
are not pictures from a poet's dream, but beautiful 
realities. 

Sea-weeds are exquisite things and few people 
can resist the temptation to collect them when 
spending a vacation at the beach. When going 
on a collecting trip for these it is well to take a 
net and two pails, one small enough to hold the 
smaller things and carried inside the larger. A heavy 
knife may be useful, too. The best time is after 
the spring-tides, because at the lowest ebb of the 
water one may find forms of great beauty and 
brighter colours than elsewhere. The rocks, the 
rubbish left by the tide, the pools, the piles, the sea- 
wall, the surface of the waves themselves, are all 
good places to look for sea-weeds. They are fewer 
on sandy beaches than elsewhere. They vary in 
size from great, coarse, leathery rock -weeds to those 
so delicate as hardly to be seen at all. 

Sea-weeds are real plants, belonging to that great 



364 OUTDOOR WORK 

group of non-flowering plants mentioned before. 
They are called algae. They do not have true 
stems and leaves, neither do they feed by means of 
roots. Many of them are so shaped that they ap- 
pear to have stems, roots, and leaves, but as these 
parts do not do the work of true stems, roots, and 
leaves they are not classed as such. The root-like 
parts of a sea weed are usually simply hold-fasts, 
which anchor the plant to the rocks. Algae which 
live in sea-water get their nourishment from the 
water which washes their entire surface. 

When collecting algae, every specimen which is in- 
tended for immediate mounting should be kept con- 
tinuously in sea-water. This is what the pails are for. 
Every part of the plant should be taken, as the at- 
tachment to the rocks is as valuable as the rest. 
The knife is useful here, or a staff with a metal point, 
for scraping the weeds off the rocks. 

The natural element of the sea plant is sea-water. 
Do not put your specimens into fresh water even to 
wash or rinse them, as they will lose some of their 
beauty. Unless dried soon after gathering they 
will decay and fade. In collecting, try and get 
plants of various sizes even though they look alike. 
The larger ones may be in the fruiting stage. Do 
your mounting out of doors if possible, w here you 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 365 

can have all the basins of sea-water you want and 
need not be careful about spilling. 

If your collection of sea weeds is for a regular 
herbarium you should by all means have mounting 
paper of the standard size and quality; heavy white, 
unruled paper, of a quality which will stand wetting 
without being spoiled, eleven and one half by sixteen 
and one fourth inches. If you are merely making a 
few souvenirs of your summer at the shore, your 
own taste is the only thing to be considered. 
You will require genus covers, labels, etc., just 
as for flowering plants. For the work of mounting 
you will want plenty of driers, some pieces of muslin 
the same size, sheets of standard size mounting 
paper as described above, a heavy needle fitted 
into a wooden handle, a pair of forceps, scissors, 
two smooth boards, and weights. For complete 
enjoyment of the work you will surely have a 
little magnifying glass, for your pressed specimens 
will never be as beautiful as the fresh ones. 

With several shallow dishes of sea -water within easy 
reach of your hands, and your pails of specimens 
floating in sea-water, you are ready to begin. Select 
your first specimen and lift it with care from the 
water. Dip it up and down gently in clean water. 
Every bit of matter that does not belong strictly 



366 



OUTDOOR WORK 







#«<^*M* ^<AL* »*«»^%% 



Sea weed mounted on paper of standard size 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 367 

to that plant must come off, and all the sand or 
other dirt. Let it spread out naturally in the water 
and with your scissors prune it to suit your purpose. 
Some grow in such a bunch that they will not show 
well on the paper, others may have to be trimmed 
to get them onto the page. Do not, of course, trim 
them down to look alike but preserve their peculiar- 
ities and characteristics. The great charm in a 
collection of this kind is in its variety. When the 
plant is absolutely clean, float it in a dish of clean 
water. This last dish should be a broad one for 
now you are to slip your sheet of mounting paper 
right into the water and get the plant onto it, floating 
it out in a natural attitude. This takes a knack, 
you may be sure, but the knack can be acquired 
with practice. If you can provide yourself with a 
pane of glass to lay the sheet upon when you take 
it from the water you will have the best conditions. 
Some people get along very well with a shallow 
plate. Some of the delicate parts will be certain 
to cling together as you lift them out of the water, 
but you can remedy that by dipping a few drops 
of water onto them and with your needle you can 
arrange them as you wish. Take your time. This 
is not a job for a person in a hurried mood. Ex- 
amine and admire each piece as you work at it. 



368 OUTDOOR WORK 

Make it yours for all time, although you may sell 
it the following day and never see it again. Lay 
one of your driers on the lower board, put a mounted 
specimen all wet as it is, on this, then spread over the 
sheet a piece of muslin, lay on another drier, mount 
another sea-weed, cover it with cloth and so on you 
may build up your pile. Top it with a drier, put on 
the second board, and your weight, of ten pounds or 
so. Coarse, thick algae should not be pressed in the 
same pile with the fine ones as they would make the 
pressure uneven. Blotters and cloths must be 
changed every day at first, dried in the sun to be 
ready for the next day. After two or three days 
the cloths may be taken off, and the plants left in 
press at least a week longer, changing driers every 
day. If you can set aside a regular time each day 
for this job, it is not so likely to be forgotten. 
Moulding specimens are very disappointing. 

After one has made a little collection of sea-weeds 
all the stories about the wonders of the deep will 
take on a reality. You will want to read all you can 
find about the Sargasso Sea, which sounds like a 
fairy story. Maybe you have a specimen of this 
sea-weed in your collection, maybe you have been 
fortunate enough to sail through that "vast acreage 
of vegetation as large as the continent of Europe, 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 369 

lying southwest of the Azores!" Do you wonder 
that the first navigators, sailing uncharted seas, 
were alarmed by this vast expanse and thought of 
course there were concealed shallows beneath the 
feathery fronds of this gulf weed? You must read, 
too, of some of the giants of the sea- weed tribe; 
the "devil's apron," the "sea-otter*s cabbage," with 
its air-vessel as big as a hogshead, and its stalk 
a slender cord hundreds of feet in length. These 
are all algse, and so are the microscopic plants which 
produce that wonderful phosphorescence on the 
surface of the ocean. There are still unsolved 
mysteries about these plants and there is always 
a chance that the boys and girls who collect sea- 
weeds to-day on the beach may in the years to come 
read some of the secrets now hidden from all eyes. 
It is well worth while to keep such a big thought 
in mind even while doing the simple and easy work 
of mounting specimens. 

COLLECTING SHELLS 

Of all the kinds of collections of natural objects 
that I have seen, there is none that has quite so 
much beauty, in itself, as a collection of shells. 
How easily they can be displayed in a cabinet for 
our friends to enjoy, too, and they are never attacked, 



370 OUTDOOR WORK 

so far as I know, by what we call museum pests, 
those destructive little creatures which make life 
a burden to the owners of collections of insects, 
plants, stuffed birds, and the like. Perhaps the 
products of the sea possess an especial charm to the 
"landlubber," but most people admire shells and 
love to handle them and to wonder where they 
came from and what kind of creatures built them. 

Did any one ever visit the shore and come home 
without a pocket bulging with shells? Or a big 
handful tied up in a grimy handkerchief.'^ Probably 
that is the way most of the great collections in the 
country were begun. You can begin one this summer 
or any time that you visit a beach, and add to it 
daily if you are spending the summer on the shore. 
As your collection and your interest grow, you can 
exchange specimens common on your coast with 
collectors who live on the other oceans and the Gulf. 
Remember that every shell is rare until you get it in 
your cabinet and what is common as the sand on 
your coast may be a rarity in other parts of the 
world. 

You will probably begin your collection by pick- 
ing up empty shells of various sizes, colours and 
shapes. Sometimes you will find a pair still held 
together by the tough tendon that worked the hinge 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 371 

when the bivalve that built the shell was alive and 
going about his affairs. Many of these will be worn 
by their daily encounter with the tide, and some 
will be pierced with small round holes too neatly 
ground to have been made by accident. These 
holes give you a hint as to why this shell is empty 
for they are the work of a band of little pirates 
which live by boring into their neighbours and suck- 
ing their life-blood. Many of the dead shells are 
those of animals which live far out at sea or in the 
deep water and have been washed ashore when the 
tide was high. Search along the shore where the 
water has drifted a line of sea-wrack. It looks 
like rubbish at first glance but it is almost sure to 
hold many small shells you will want, some even 
from far-off coasts. 

The collector will not long be satisfied to gather 
only such shells as he finds on the beach. His eyes 
are opened. What seemed to him at first a flat, 
smooth surface of sand strewn with bits of rubbish 
and a few shells, most of them not worth picking 
up, has awakened into life. Every pool has become 
as a village, its inhabitants engaged in a variety 
of occupations. The smooth sand is inhabited. 
The centre of population is down at the low-water 
line. The rocks, the bridge piers, the wharf piles, 



372 OUTDOOR WORK 

and the sea-walls are seen to be covered with living 
things. Now collecting begins in good earnest. 

On the sandy beach one needs a net, a sieve, and a 
shovel. The best costume for such work is the same 
as that worn when bathing. You will need to be in 
the water part of the time and will not wish to be 
hampered by anxiety as to clothing. The best 
time to go is the time you can go, of course, but you 
are more likely to find a great variety of things 
at the very lowest tide. You have heard of plant- 
ing "by the moon" and you are right in supposing 
that the moon has little influence on potatoes and 
cabbages. But to go collecting on the sea-shore 
"by the moon" is quite reasonable. When the 
moon is full and when it is new they have what are 
called spring tides at which times the ebb is lower 
than ordinarily. After a storm is a fine time to 
look for things which have been dragged by the 
force of the water from their anchorage in the 
depths, and tossed ashore. 

When you arrive on the sand all will appear to 
be quiet. Your best plan is to sit still and wait for 
some signs of life. In a moment some clam may send 
a jet of water into the air near you. If you are 
quick enough with your shovel you may catch the 
joker, but he has had more practice in the game 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 373 

than you and will probably elude you. Watch for 
bubbles and jets of water and dig frantically. You 
will be able to work up speed after a few trials and 
land your "fish." After some practice you will be 
able to unearth many living things you little sus- 
pected of being there. Crabs of various kinds are 
common and sea-worms of rainbow colours and 
curious forms. Creatures in snail-like shells, little 
and big, are common in the sand of our coast. As 
you shovel away try to have presence of mind enough 
to throw the sand into your sieve. Take this to 
the water's edge and wash it. You will in this way 
get many small things which you otherwise would 
not see. 

Do not discard anything about which you have 
an unanswered question. Many of the moUusks leave 
egg cases on the sand or these are washed in by the 
tides. They are no less wonderful than the shells, 
for they are chapters in the same story. The egg- 
cases of the whelk are common. Those of the skate 
are called "devil's pocket-books" by natives. 

Muddy shores have their own special forms, while 
rocky coasts differ from all the rest. Some creatures, 
like the hermit crab, are abundant everywhere. 
You can read the story of this fellow in any book 
on shells. Take some of the stories about him with a 



374 OUTDOOR WORK 

grain of salt. He may not be as bad as he is painted 
for much of the gossip about him has never been 
proven. His affairs need investigation. 

The creatures which build the shells are for the 
most part soft bodied and can not be preserved 
except in some liquid like alcohol or formalin. 
These would be difficult to transport but will be 
of greatest value if you are studying the structure 
of the mollusks. If you wish to preserve the shells 
only, you should take great care to free every part 
from any animal matter that adheres to them. Boil- 
ing the shell will usually accomplish this. 

Labels should be used and record made of the 
locality, date, collector's name, and other interest- 
ing data. Every naturalist of any experience has 
the note-book habit. Many a collector who 
trusts to his memory finds himself sadly at a loss 
when he comes to work with his specimens and es- 
pecially when he wants to write about them. If 
his note-book tells him the story he will be able to 
make his account accurate as well as interesting. 

COLLECTING INSECTS 

The two principal reasons for making insect 
collections are first, to study, second, to sell. The 
beginner's outfit will be the same whichever reason 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 375 

is his. Time was when any one carrying an insect 
net was looked on with a sort of pitying suspicion. 
He or she was thought to be the victim of a mild 
form of lunacy, which might or might not take 
violent shape. All that is past now that insect 
study has grown so important and popular. It 
is quite safe to conclude that the hundreds of 
trained scientists employed by the government 
to investigate the problems involving insect life 
all started their studies by making a collection. 

Probably the easiest kind of collection to make is 
one of plants. Once you see them, their fate is 
sealed. Escape is impossible. But collecting wild 
plants about your own door yard and in the woods is 
tame work compared to insect capturing. Your eye 
marks a butterfly or a dragon fly for your own, but 
you have him yet to reckon with and his wings may 
carry him far beyond your reach. 

The outfit necessary to an insect collector is 
simple and inexpensive. For general collecting, 
and that is the best for a beginner, you need: 

1. A net. 

2. A killing bottle. 

3. Insect pins. 

4. Insect boxes. 

While you can add to your collection almost 



376 OUTDOOR WORK 

every day in the year when once "you have the 
fever," the best time to begin is summer. More 
insects are in evidence then, and their active flight, 
their beautiful colours, and wonderful variety of 
form all help arouse the interest. As the collec- 
tion grows you will find that many insects can be 
captured without a net, but as you will want every 
new butterfly, moth, dragon fly, and grasshopper 
that comes into your line of vision you must cer- 
tainly have a net the first thing. 

The materials needed for a net are these: 

1. A smooth, light, but strong handle about 
three feet in length. (An old broom handle will 
answer.) 

2. A strip of tin, four inches wide, and long 
enough to fit around the handle. (Why not use a 
piece of a tin can if you have strong shears?) 

3. Three and a half feet of heavy wire. (No. 
3 galvanized is the thing.) 

4. A piece of cheese cloth, three fourths of a 
yard. (Get a good grade to stand a season's wear.) 

Almost every boy knows a tinsmith and when 
it comes to putting these materials together, the 
services of a skilled workman are very valuable. 
If pocket money is scarce, there are any number of 
jobs a boy can do for the tinsmith in exchange for 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 377 

his help in making the net. That piece of wire is 
to form the ring which holds the cheese cloth bag; 
the ring must be fastened securely into the end of 
the handle. Bend the wire into a circle a foot 
in diameter, then bend back three inches of both 
ends and force them into the end of the handle, 
a hole for the purpose first having been made by burn- 
ing or boring. Bend the tin round the handle at 
the net end to keep it from splitting when in use, 
and tack it on tight. 




Insect net 



If you know how to sew you are 
more fortunate than most of the 
boys I know, although why should 
not a boy learn to use a sewing 
machine .'^ The bag ought to be 
sewed on the machine. You must 
first lay the finished edge or sel- 
vedge around the wire to make sure that it goes 
around and has a little extra for the seam. 
Pin the cloth together where it meets around 
the wire, then lay it on a table, double. Cut 
the bag, rounding the bottom neatly. Cheese 
cloth is the worst stuff to ravel, and if you sew the 
bag with a single seam you will soon be sorry. 



378 OUTDOOR WORK 

Pin the cloth so that the two edges are exactly 
together and sew a seam about a quarter of an inch 
wide all the way round. Now turn the bag inside 
out and fold it so that the seam you just made will 
be right on the edge. Sew another seam, three 
eighths of an inch deep this time. The ragged edge 
of the goods will now be inside of this second seam 
and can not fray out and make a nuisance of itself. 
If all this is worse than Dutch to you, take the bag 
to your sister. She is not so much cleverer than you 
but the chances are that if you ask her to sew you 
a French seam, she will make it just as I have 
described. Sew the finished bag onto the wire with 
heavy double thread and your net is ready for use. 

Materials to make a killing bottle: 1. A wide- 
mouthed bottle. (I advise every collector to have 
two bottles, one to carry in the pocket all the time, 
the other for special trips for large things. For the 
first a small olive oil bottle, a test tube, or any con- 
venient sized bottle with a mouth nearly or quite 
as large as the body of the bottle. A fruit jar, pint 
size, does well for the very large things.) 

%. A cork which fits the bottle tightly, and is an 
inch long. A cork any shorter than this is an 
aggravation as it is so unhandy. 

3. A lump of cyanide of potassium as big as a 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 379 

hickory nut for the small bottle, two or a httle more 

for the big bottle. Yes, cyanide is a deadly poison, 

and the druggist will not sell it to 

you and your father will not let you 

buy it. But if you convince your 

mother that she can trust you 

to use a cyanide bottle as it is 

intended to be used, her objections 

will melt away. Just as likely as 

not she and your father, too, and 

your teacher, and maybe the 

druggist all made insect collections 

when they were your age and one 

or the other will make your Killing bottle 

cyanide bottles for you following these directions; 

4. A teacup full of plaster of Paris. 

Handle the cyanide with a couple of sticks or 
drop the lumps from the paper into the bottles 
so as not to touch them with your fingers, mix a 
little of the plaster of Paris and water till it is like 
a thin paste and pour enough in on the lumps of 
cyanide to entirely cover them. Put in on top 
of this all the dry plaster of Paris the water will 
take up. Let the bottle stand open for an hour or 
so, then wipe it out with a rag, which may be 
burned afterward. Put in the cork and your killing 




380 OUTDOOR WORK 

bottle is ready to do its share toward making a 
collection for you. Don't forget to label your 
bottles *' poison," and always be careful not to 
inhale the fumes. The smell of the breath of the 
bottle will be enough to remind you. 

It was a Japanese student, who, when he found 
one of his pinned moths had come to life and beaten 
its wings to pieces in the box, said: "It ought-a be 
dead. He in cy'ni' bot'l' a' night." I should notwish 
to be quite so stoical. His bot'l' was probably an 
old one, which did its work too slowly. 

MOUNTING INSECTS 

The first insects I ever saw in a collection were a 
sorry sight. Beautiful as the specimens had been, 
they were all spoiled by the collector. The moths 
were all out of shape, wings half folded, the pins 
used were short common pins, and every specimen 
was disfigured with masses of verdigris, they were 
pinned into rough boxes in higgledy-piggledy fashion, 
and showed every sign of neglect and careless hand- 
ling. My interest in insect collecting did not date 
from that hour but from a look I had at a friend's 
cabinet years later. 

The first mistake a beginner makes is to use com- 
mon pins. Really, before you begin to collect, you 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 381 

ought to send away for a supply of German insect 
pins. These can be bought from dealers in entomo- 
logical supplies and a hundred eachof Nos. 3 and 5 
will cost thirty cents. With them your collection 
may be salable, and you may exchange your dupli- 
cates with other collectors, while if you use common 
pins your specimens will have no commercial value, 
and will soon be spoiled, by the corroding of the pins. 
The first insect you get will probably be a butter- 
fly, or a moth, for these showy ones are all you are 




CORK " 



Cross-section of spreading-board, showing construction 

able to see. Later the smaller ones will attract 
your attention. Therefore you will not be able 
to mount your first specimen properly without a 
spreading-board. The drawing of one which ap- 
pears on this page will tell you more about how to 
make as well as how to use it than any amount 
of description. If you can earn seventy -five cents 



382 OUTDOOR WORK 

more easily than by making a set of three of these 
in assorted sizes, you can buy for that amount an 
adjustable one which will serve you for all winged 

insects of all sizes. 

I will suppose that you 
have captured your first 
butterfly. Do get a good 
sized one first as it will be 
easier to learn on that than 
on a small one. An hour in 
a freshly made cyanide jar 
is long enough to insure a 
painless death. If any one 
calls you a cruel boy at this 
time, assure the person that 
butterflies are very short-lived 
and that this one would have 
been eaten by a bird within 
an hour or two anyhow. The 
cyanide is the least painful 
form of dying for the but- 
terfly. Its work is probably 
done, already. You can 

Spreading-board. in use ^^^^^ ^j^at yOU do not kill 

Insects for the fun of seeing them die, by putting 
the bottle back in your pocket where they can die 




MAKING COLLECTIONS 383 

in private, and by never killing any unless you need 
them for your collection. A few duplicates for 
exchange is also legitimate. It does not injure a 
specimen to leave it in the jar over night. If you 
cannot spread it immediately, do not take it from 
the jar, as when dried they cannot be spread, as 
they are very brittle. 

If you never looked at a butterfly before, you will 
look at this one. You will note that it has four 
broad wings attached to a rounded body. The 
portion of the body to which the wings are fastened 
is called the thorax. For a medium- sized insect, 
a No. 3 pin should be taken. The butterfly should 
be pinned through the thorax, half way between 
the front wings. Direct the pin so that it will 
come out in the middle on the under side of the 
thorax. One fourth of the pin's length should 
remain above the insect. This may seem a small 
matter but insects unevenly pinned look badly, 
and it spoils their salability. You will want some 
black-headed pins for use on the spreading-board. 
Common pins hurt the fingers, insect pins are too 
flexible and expensive. Pin strips of paper on to hold 
the wings in place. With the picture of butterflies 
on a spreading-board as a model, you will, after 
some experience, get so that you can do this well. 



384 OUTDOOR WORK 

It is no job for an impatient person, though. Leave 
the butterfly on the board until it is thoroughly dry, 
which takes three days. Put the board where the air 
can have free circulation around it, but not the mice. 
The only insects that are not pinned through 





Showing how to pin common insects 

the middle of the thorax are the beetles, those 
hard-shelled creatures like June bugs (which ought 
to be called May beetles), and potato bugs (which 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 385 

are also beetles). If you put a pin through the 
centre of a beetle's thorax, it spreads the wings out 
in an unnatural way. So collectors agree to pin 
them through the right wing-cover. 

Your next requirement will be boxes to put the 
specimens in. Many a fine collection has been begun 
in ordinary cigar boxes. At first you will probably 
try to pin the insects right into the bottom of the 
box. After you have spoiled two or three of your 
rarest ones, bent a dozen or so expensive pins, you 
will conclude that the wood is too hard and does not 
hold the pins well. Be warned in time to save your- 
self this bother. 
The boxes should 
be lined with a 
thin layer of some 
material which, 
though softenough 
to push a pin into 
easily, must at the 
same time be elas- 
tic and firm enough to hold the pins. Cork, linoleum, 
and slices of pith are all used. You may have 
noticed, though, if you have been to a large, up- 
to-date museum, that the specimens of insects are 
all pinned into solid blocks of wood. Many an 




\^^ 



Pin butterflies through the thorax, between 
the front pair of wings 



386 OUTDOOR WORK 

hour I have spent pinning specimens into blocks 
in their permanent places in a great museum col- 
lection. It is hard work and has to be done with a 
tool. When once fastened on a block the insect is 
supposed to be a jfixture; when it moves the block 
goes along. But the material you use in your boxes 
ought to be soft enough to make shifting of speci- 
mens easy. For example, at first you will get a great 
assortment. A butterfly to-day, a beetle or two to- 
morrow, a pair of moths the next day, some crickets, 
a dragon fly, a cicada, a waterbug, and so on. Take 
everything unless you already have it. That is the 
only way to collect. If you say, *'0h, I'll get a better 
one to-morrow," the chances are that the season will 
go by and you will not get that variety at all. 

CLASSIFICATION 

Your first box full will be a varied assortment. 
When you have all you can conveniently pin into 
three boxes without crowding, you will want to 
arrange them. If you have begun to study science 
you will know what "classify '* means. Every school 
is made up of classes. So with insects. You will 
know by the looks of the insects that certain 
ones belong together. A good way to start is to 
put all the butterflies and moths into one box. 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 387 

You may not know what you have done, but you 
have simply separated the members of the order 
Lepidoptera from all the others. Look over 
those that are left and you will see that some, 
like the blundering June bug, have their wings 
so placed that a straight line appears down the 
middle of the back. These belong together, regard- 
less of their colour, size, shape, habits, or other 
considerations. They belong to the order Coleop- 
tera. Grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets belong 
to another group and can be pinned together. 
All the flies have two wings, and belong in a group 
apart from all the Jour-winged ones. The dragon 




Glass-topped insect case 

flies go together. You will have representatives 
of other orders, less easy to distinguish, but by the 
time your collection has grown to this extent you will 
be ready for some beginner's book on entomology. 



388 OUTDOOR WORK 

which will make further classification simple enough. 
As you shift your specimens from one box to 
another observe a certain regularity of arrangement. 
The heads should all point in one direction. When 
pinning a group all of which are about one size, 
set the pins all in line, in military fashion. How 
much better they look! This neat, formal arrange- 
ment of the specimens adds greatly to your satis- 
faction and enjoyment of your collection. Avoid 
crowding and breakage. A dried specimen is almost 
everlasting, but at the same time it is the most 
fragile thing you can imagine. 

As your collection grows in size, value, and in- 
terest, you will certainly want wooden cases. Per- 
haps your manual training teacher will be willing 
to let you build a box under his direction. A cabinet- 
maker can make them at one dollar or less, apiece, of 
well-seasoned basswood. 

Before you have been collecting long, you will 
have learned by observation quite a lot about insects 
and their ways. You will know that some localities 
are very poor collecting ground, that other places 
yield an abundant variety; that the best time 
for butterflies is in a sunny forenoon; while moths 
are abroad in the early twilight and later. You will 
see that dragon flies are fond of flying about over 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 389 

streams or ponds and you may wonder why as you 

try in vain to net a fine one without getting your feet 

wet. Other insects are frankly aquatic and you can 

get them only by dipping your net in. It is well 

to have a second net if you expect to do much water 

collecting as the cloth is hard to smooth out after 

a wetting. As a majority of insects are vegetarian 

you will naturally seek among plants for specimens. 

If the winged forms are not eating the foliage you 

may discover that they are laying eggs on the 

leaves of the food plant on which their young 

must develop. If you live in town you will find it 

worth while to carry your bottle with you when you 

go out in the evening. Nocturnal insects of all 

kinds are attracted to electric lights, many of them 

to their death, as you will see. A candle in your open 

window will attract some valuable additions to your 

collection and also some you will sleep better without. 

Some collectors care nothing for a specimen unless it is 

rare. A better way is to regard them all as rare until 

you secure a specimen for your box, and of equal value 

towards building up a complete collection. 

A LIFE HISTORY COLLECTION 

You can not collect insects very long before you 
begin to see a lot of things you never noticed be- 



390 OUTDOOR WORK 

fore. You see leaves cut or eaten in strange forms, 
or you find a cluster of tiny eggs on a leaf, or several 
leaves sewed or stuck together with strands of silk. 
Perhaps you find strange abnormal growths on 
certain plants, swellings on their stems, leaves trans- 
formed into balls, or pod-like or cone-like affairs 
which do not look natural. These things are sure to 
arouse your curiosity. Sometimes the answer to 
your question is right there. Cut open a swollen 
golden-rod stalk aiid you will find the culprit which 
caused the plant to grow that way. But how did 
the footless, helpless grub get there and when? 
You break down the mud-dauber wasp's nest from 
among the rafters of some building. What is that 
yellowish object that rolls from among the ruined 
adobe walls? Look! It is a spider. What busi- 
ness has a spider in the wasp's nest, if it is her nest? 
Spiders have none too good a reputation, but this 
spider does not act very spry. Seems to be alive, 
yet not alive. 

The secret of the relation between the spiders 
and the wasps you can read in many a book. You 
might even guess at it, but there was no guess work 
about the observer who first studied out this secret. 
He did not get his knowledge from books. He 
patiently watched the mud-dauber going about 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 391 

her house building. He knew that her painstaking 
labour could have but one meaning. She was 
building not a home for herself, but for her children. 

The wasp's children are not little wasps, yet they 
are none the less young wasps for being footless, 
colourless, wingless, stingless grubs. They are eggs 
at first of course, just as all insects are. When the 
mother wasp has one cell of her apartment house 
finished she concerns herself immediately with 
stocking the larder. Knowing the tastes of her yet 
unborn young, she leaves for a time the mud hole, 
and visits the haunts of certain spiders. Finding 
one to her liking, she captures it. Not appreciating 
the fact that the law forbids the use of preservatives 
in meats, she injects a drop of some wonder-working 
fluid into the spider and preserves the creature, 
not only fresh but alive, though paralyzed. Upon 
the inert body she places an egg, then seals the cell, 
well assured in her mind that when the grub hatches 
it will find the food just as she left it and just enough 
to nourish the young one to maturity. 

Before your first season of collecting is past you 
will find yourself bringing home as specimens many 
insects which you will see are not fully grown. 
Little grasshoppers, scarcely bigger than a fly 
yet possessed of such strength of leg that they 



392 OUTDOOR WORK 

can hurl themselves into the air for a distance equal 
to twenty times their own length. How do you know 
that they are young grasshoppers and not fully 
grown ones of some tiny race? Look at one closely 
and you will see a look of youth about him that is 
unmistakable. He is fuzzy, his head is too big 
for him, his legs out of all proportion to the rest 
of him. Then, too, he has no wings, just little buds 
where the wings will be some day. By these tokens 
you will know him for a baby. You can find them 
in all sizes and can have a series to show the stages 
of growth. This is one of the first steps in the 
making of a "Life History Collection," far more 
valuable to the naturalist than a collection con- 
taining only mature insects. 

Generally speaking, all adult insects have wings, 
and all winged insects are adults. There are ex- 
ceptions to this, but they will take their places when 
the time comes. The young of the insects belong- 
ing to certain orders resemble their parents enough 
so as to be placed where they belong at a glance. 
This is true of the grasshoppers, katydids, and 
crickets, of the true bugs which include the squash- 
bugs, the chinch-bug, the stink-bug and others. 
Of most of the other orders this is not true. The 
young do not look at all like the adults. In many 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 393 

cases as, for example, the dragon fly and the mos- 
quito, they are fitted in the immature stages to a 
hfe in the water. They must, on this account, have 
organs for swimming, for aquatic breathing, and 
for getting a hving in the water. The forms of 
these young insects are just as varied as those of 
the adults, but they do not resemble the winged 
ones in the least. The life history collection must 
contain specimens of the immature forms of insect 
life as well as adults if it is to be most useful and 
complete. 

Some orders of insects, as for example the moths, 
butterflies, beetles, flies, bees, wasps, ants, and 
others pass through four distinct changes of form. 
They always follow the same order. Every genera- 
tion, beginning with the egg, passes next to the 
larva (called caterpillar or incorrectly worm, or 
grub, or maggot), on to the pupa, then to the adult. 
The egg of an insect is often a most beautiful object. 
With a hand lens, which every collector will surely 
need, one can see its delicate colouring, its pearl- 
like shell, its curiously carved or sculptured surface. 
To get some idea of the great variety in form, 
colour, shape, and markings of insects' eggs, ask at 
your library for a book on butterflies, with coloured 
plates, and the chances are that you will be surprised. 



394 OUTDOOR WORK 

The second or larval stage of the insect's life is 
the eating, growing stage. During this stage the 
young bee, butterfly, ant, or moth moults several 
times. In this process the entire old skin is shed, 
an operation well worth seeing. Under the old coat 
a new one has formed, which being larger, accom- 
modates itself to the insect's increased size. The 
larval stage is in the case of many insects the 
active time when, if they are vegetable feeders, they 
injure crops. 

When the larva has completed its growth it 
changes into a pupa. Some insects pass this third 
stage inside of silken cases they spin about them- 
selves, others, after shedding the larval skin, find 
themselves each clad in a sort of horny coat of mail. 
We call these chrysalides. Some larvse creep away 
into the ground, there to shed their old coats and 
rest inside of the pupa cases which nature provides. 
Each one follows the fashion of his own family and 
is in no danger of being mistaken for any one else. 

Out of the pupa, whether it be cocoon, chrysalis, 
or just plain pupa case, comes the adult. The 
main business of adult insects is to reproduce their 
kind. After the eggs are laid there is little ex- 
cuse for their living. In the case of a great many 
kinds of insects death follows soon after. There 



MAKING COLLECTIONS S95 

are some noted exceptions to this rule as for instance 
the wasps which build with so much skill and 
patience the homes in which to rear their young, 
the ants and the bees, both social and solitary, which 
carry on such a complicated home life. Of these 
highly "civilized" insects only a word can be spoken 
here. From the chapter on "Bee-Keeping" and 
from other books you may learn of the wonders 
they perform. We must return now to our life 
history collection. 

How the subject opens as we add specimens of 
cocoons and pupa cases to the collection ! To get a 
complete series illustrating the life, let us say, of 
one of our common butterflies, the monarch or 
milk-weed butterfly, you should visit the clusters 
of milk -weed along the roadside or anywhere, in the 
forenoon of a sunny July or August day. A few 
butterflies are probably flitting about in rather 
casual fashion. Watch them light on the leaves, 
mark the leaf wdth your eye and hurry to the spot. 
Search well. The tiny speck of pale yellow may be 
a drop of milk but if it stands up on the leaf it is 
likely to be a butterfly's egg. Your lens will tell you. 
Having made sure of one you will find others. 

You may find a young caterpillar lunching on the 
leaf. If just out of the egg it is a dull lead colour, 



396 OUTDOOR WORK 

but when half grown a young monarch is striped 
with rings of greenish yellow and black. Though 
handsome as to colour scheme, this caterpillar 
has manners unbecoming a plain citizen, let alone 
a monarch. Touch its back with a grass stem and 
see what happens. 

If time permits you should visit your clump of 
milk-weed daily or better still take home the eggs 
and the young caterpillars. Keep the food plant 
fresh in a jar of water and get more when needed. 
As you want a specimen of the egg-shell for your 
collection, you must be on the spot when the young 
caterpillars come out. They sometimes eat the 
shell the first thing. It is a delicate operation to 
glue a thing as frail as this shell onto a dried milk- 
weed leaf, and you may have to content yourself 
with making a sketch of it on a small square of 
drawing paper. Pin the leaf or the drawing in 
the box. It is not easy to keep specimens of cater- 
pillars. There is a method of preparing the inflated 
skins, but as the process is a difficult as well as a 
ghastly one, you can wait till you go to college to 
learn it. For the milk-weed caterpillar I suggest 
instead, a coloured drawing. When your caterpillars 
are full-sized they will transform into chrysalides. 
It is worth sitting up all night to see a sight like 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 897 

this. When a caterpillar spins a little mat of silk 
and suspends itself by a tail-hook, you will know 
that the performance is about to begin. The chrys- 
alis is a lovely light green with spots of gold upon 
it. All this beauty was hidden under the skin 
of the caterpillar. With an egg, a caterpillar, a 
chrysalis, and an adult you have all four stages of 
the monarch's life represented. 

INSECT HOMES 

Nothing in the insect world interests me more 
than their homes. The collector sees many of these 
in his rounds, and begins to consider how he can 
complete his series by adding samples of them as 
specimens to his collection. I was lucky enough 
to find, when on a collecting trip one day, a curious 
structure made of mud on a weed stem. It was de- 
clared by the professor to be an ants' "cow-shed." 
Knowing that the museum specimen was in a 
bad state of repair I readily offered my find to re- 
place it. The professor refused the gift, but offered 
me what he thought it was worth. I accepted 
and bought a pair of shoes with the money, 
which shows that these things have a market value. 

It is well to press a specimen of the favourite 
food plant of a species of insect and make it a part 



398 OUTDOOR WORK 

of the collection. But dried butterflies, fastened 
in utterly unnatural attitudes upon dried plants 
they would scorn to eat in life, framed or put 
under glass globes on the parlour table do not appeal 
to the naturalist. They are "fakes "pure and simple. 

There will be a few among the many who begin 
to make collections of various kinds who will keep 
at it. I know one young man who sold his stamp 
collection for enough to take him on his first trip 
abroad. Six hundred dollars was the sum realized, 
I believe. Those of you who have read Mrs. 
Gene Stratton -Porter's story "The Girl of the 
Limberlost" remember that "the girl" sold Indian 
relics and insects enough to send herself to high 
school and start a college fund. She made up little 
life history collections to illustrate the talks she 
gave as special teacher of nature study in the 
grades in a city school system. 

The Limberlost girl had an offer of three hundred 
dollars for a complete collection of the butterflies and 
moths of the United States. She had a wonderful 
collecting ground in and about the big swamp, and 
she had enough duplicates to exchange with other 
collectors for things she could not get at home. 
In order to have perfect specimens, both male 
and female, she made breeding cages and reared 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 399 

the moths and butterflies. She dug in the earth 
about the tree roots and other "likely" places for 
pupae, she searched the shrubs and vines and trees 
for hanging cocoons, she brought in innumerable 
eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalides and the story of 
her successes and failures fills many delightful 
pages. It all rings so true that you can't help 
hoping that you may see her insect collection some 
day, and hear her tell how she brought this butter- 
fly up "by hand," how she had to wait a year to 
get a male to complete one series, how narrowly 
she escaped the quicksands in a wild chase she had 
for another, and other details of her occupation. 




Bandbox breeding-cage for 
insects 



REARING INSECTS 

Breeding insects is easy. 
Look at the home-made breed- 
ing-cage illustrated on this 
page. Materials needed: One 
roimd or oval hat box, a strip 
of wire screen, two and a 
half feet wide or so and long 
enough to fit around the inside 
of the box and lap three 
inches. Either sew the screen 
together in the form of a 



400 OUTDOOR WORK 

cylinder or fasten it every six inches with paper 
fasteners. (Any way to keep it together good 
and tight.) Push the screen down inside the 
box till it touches the bottom, put the lid 
on and you are ready for business. If the screen 
is too wide you will have trouble in reaching to the 
bottom of the box which you will have to do some- 
times, for one reason or another. Into breeding- 
cages made on this general plan you can put all sorts 
of material while waiting developments, and get 
many additions to your collection that you would 
otherwise miss entirely. 

Some surprising facts are often discovered by 
accident. A breeding-cage containing a female 
Cecropia, one of our largest and most beauti- 
ful moths, was accidentally left near an open 
window over night. The next morning between 
twenty and thirty moths of that species were 
found fluttering about the cage. They had evidently 
been attracted from some distance, but found their 
way to their imprisoned sister unerringly. 

Collectors have many ways of capturing night 
flying moths. One way is known as "sugaring." 
This consists of daubing a sticky, sweet preparation 
on the trunks of trees and visiting the baits later in 
the evening with cyanide jars and capturing the 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 401 

specimens which are attracted by the odour to the 
feast set for them. It is unsportsmanlike and entirely 
unnecessary to put any poisonous substance in the 
bait and this practice should be darkly frowned upon. 

The best places for sugaring are these: a strip 
of woodland edging a stream, the rim of the woods 
adjoining an open field or pasture, old roadways 
through woods of beech, oak, chestnut, or any 
mixed growth, wooded slopes in city parks where 
there is some protecting undergrowth, anywhere 
about the old groves surrounding country homes. 
Windy or wet nights are not the best for sugaring, 
neither are moonlight nights. The ideal night for 
this is the evening after a hot, sticky day in late 
summer, the sky overcast and dark but not foggy. 
You will need a lantern to work by. Keep calm. 
Quick, nervous movements frighten away more 
moths than the light. 

The following is the unspeakable concoction rec- 
ommended by one collector as "the best ever" 
for baiting moths: 

Four pounds darkest sugar. 

One quart New Orleans molasses. 

One pint stale beer or ale. (This should have 
been allowed to stand uncorked in a warm place 
for a week, before using it.) 



402 OUTDOOR WORK 

Mix all together and heat gradually. Boil till 
about as thick as varnish, which takes about five 
minutes. When cool add four ounces of Jamaica rum. 
Cork loosely and keep in a cool place. The strong 
odour of this mixture pervades the air for a long 
distance, and proves attractive to the olfactories 
of moths though none of us would care to have it 
about. 

A good evening's work at sugaring ought to furnish 
moths enough to keep you busy spreading all the 
next forenoon. A night in the cyanide jar will do 
them no injury. It is well to have a pair of light 
pincers to take specimens out with. If all are 
emptied out at once some will dry too much before 
you are ready to spread them. Every time they are 
handled they lose part of the scales and become 
slightly defective. If practical, put the very large 
specimens into the jar hinder end first. This will 
make it easier to get them out head first. 

It is almost inevitable that the inveterate collector 
of insects shall become a naturalist. By constant 
watching, he discovers how insects live, and how 
they affect plants. He will witness many a tragedy. 
He will find that there are among them thieves and 
robbers, pirates, cannibals, assassins, scavengers, 
and disease carriers. He will witness many acts 



MAKING COLLECTIONS 403 

of heroic self-denial, some feats of strength, en- 
durance tests, and acrobatic turns. He will admire 
the ingenious architecture and wonder at the never 
ending variety of forms, colours, and markings 
they exhibit. Many questions will come up in the 
course of his studies. He may seek the books in 
vain for information on some of the commonest 
insects of the garden. Entomology is a new science. 
Boys and girls who begin the study by collecting 
their first insect to-day may, before they stop, dis- 
cover some important fact to add to the sum of 
human knowledge and make the world a better 
place to live in. 



X 

ODD JOBS 
KINDLING WOOD 

CUTTING kindling wood was ever a boy's 
job. Most set tasks have little to them 
but drudgery. But cutting kindling used 
to be interesting. What is there about it.? The 
struggle to master a stubborn stick, the danger that 
a slip may bring the axe down elsewhere'than'on the 
stick, or that a careless blow may cause the stick 
to rebound, leap into the air, and give the chopper 
a whack on the head? Scarcely a boy but can show 
a hatchet's scar on the foot and I know a girl who 
will always carry one in the place where most people 
carry a corn. 

The problem of a source of kindling supply on 
the farm is never one to be reckoned with. There 
are always old fences going to pieces, old buildings 
being torn down, and the problem is rather how to 
store the supply where it can be had when needed. 

404 




An Odd Jol' lliat IS .\. 



i'liotograpli l>y 

■r Out of Date 



ielen W. Cooke 



ODD JOBS 405 

In town things are different. The fences, if any, 
are iron, the buildings are few and kept in repair 
because they cost so much to build. There are 
practically no loose boards lying around and kindling 
has to be bought outright. The ex-farmer always 
resents this as an uncalled-for expense. But kindling 
is a necessity wherever fires are to be made. No 
patent article quite fills the bill. 

Why should grown men monopolize the kindling 
business? Because there is good money in it? 
But any boy can go into this business, if he has 
any spunk. The capital required is very small. 
If your credit is good you can borrow a hatchet. 
The chances are that spunk will supply the wood. 
It may be rotting in somebody's wood lot waiting 
till the right boy comes along. 

Boys in the South are lucky. They can get fat 
pine which is in great demand both North and 
South. Some say the supply has given out, but 
who believes such tales? The demand for this will 
never be less than now and there is no substitute 
for fat pine. 

Collecting driftwood is another occupation for 
boys, sea-coast boys, this time. A kind of sub- 
stitute for this is being sold. It is a mixture of 
chemicals and does very well for toy fireplaces in 



406 OUTDOOR WORK 

city apartments. But the real thing will always 
bring a fancy price. 

It is the common practice of American lumber- 
men to regard no part of the tree as valuable, but 
the trunk. All the rest is rubbish and the expense 
of trimming off the branches reduces the amount 
of profit on every log. Some day when our young 
foresters get enough experience to see all round the 
great subject they are working at, they will think 
out ways of disposing economically of the tops and 
branches of the cut trees. This is one of the big 
problems of forestry for these reasons: (1) The 
huge amount of this refuse wood chokes out the 
young growth and the forest cannot renew itself 
as it would naturally. (2) The brush dries quickly 
and whenever a small fire gets started there is fresh 
food for it everywhere. (3) The brush prevents 
the fighters from making their way to the threat- 
ened district. They have to fight the brush piles 
before they get to the fire. 

This refuse wood might be put to a number of 
uses, e. g., for pulp wood, thus saving the trunks 
for lumber; for fuel, nothing makes better fires than 
the smaller limbs; for kindling, the branches which 
are too small to use for stove wood make splendid 
kindling, particularly for fireplaces. 



ODD JOBS 407 

Some of us think gathering faggots too slow and 
laborious. But we needn't make work of it. When 
I see men, women and children poking over the 
masses of evil-smelling rubbish on the mammoth 
dump-heaps that deface the landscape near some 
of our great cities, or going from house to house 
collecting old iron or rubber or newspapers, or pick- 
ing over the slag along the railways for chance 
lumps of coal, I wish that there were some way of 
getting them away into the woods where firewood 
is rotting and doing harm besides, a waste that 
works both ways, you see. 

There is no excuse for the poor people of a village 
near woods suffering for fuel. They needn't steal. 
Let them get permission from the owner to clean 
up his wood lot. It will be good for the wood lot 
and the owner knows it if he is an intelligent man. 
The boys and girls are much safer gathering faggots 
in the woods than coal along the tracks. 

Faggots for kindlings bring a fair price, too, 
and I recommend it as a way of earning money out 
of your father's wood lot if he has one. In some 
villages in Germany the people have the right to 
break off in the forest all the branches that they can 
reach when standing on the ground. In those 
forests there is never any loss of life, nor lumber. 



408 OUTDOOR WORK 

by fires, no choking out of young growth by brush 
piles. You could walk through the forest there 
and see in every direction miles and miles of clean 
trunked trees of varying ages, but no underbrush, 
no rubbish, no decaying logs, no diseased wood. 

Maybe those thrifty German people made mis- 
takes when their country was as young as ours. 
But they found out the way to take care of their 
forests hundreds of years ago and we can learn how 
from them. 

CLEANING A CARRIAGE 

If you get home late at night after a drive in the 
mud the chances are that you will not clean the 
carriage till the next day. But if thin mud is al- 
lowed to dry on a varnished surface it will be sure to 
leave spots. 

Water is the "first aid to the injured" in cleaning 
highly polished vehicles. Plenty of it should be 
flushed onto the varnish, the mud washed off by 
the force of the water rather than being rubbed 
off or scraped off. Keep your buggy out of the 
bright sunlight when not in use, especially when it 
is wet. Slow drying is better for the varnish. 

A coarse sponge is a good thing to wash a carriage 
with; this should be thoroughly rinsed after each 



ODD JOBS 409 

rub to free it from grit. Never use soap on varnish. 
It may be used on the metal parts of the carriage. 
Prepared chalk is the best for polishing the orna- 
mental parts. For glass, clean water and a cloth 
or chamois skin are all you need. 

WORK IN THE ORCHARD 

Many are the light jobs in the orchard or fruit 
plantation, which fall to the boys. I know a boy who 
at thirteen was his father's expert budder. There 
are high school boys in localities where nurseries 
and orchards are plentiful who follow this as a trade, 
making good wages at it. It is a wonderful thing 






Shield-budding 

to do, a very neat job in handicraft, and while a 
book might tell how it is done, nobody could learn 
how to bud or graft without seeing it done and then 



410 OUTDOOR WORK 

trying, till the trick is learned. Boys also follow 
the grafter and tie in the bud or wax the graft. 

Boys are often employed in vineyards to follow 
the pruners and tie the vines to the trellis or wire with 
rags or raffia. They become very expert and tie 
an incredible number in a day. In fact many of the 
light jobs grow pretty heavy after eight or nine hours. 

MAKING RUSTIC FURNITURE 

Collecting material for making rustic furniture 
is a pastime that is suggested by walks in the woods. 
Sometimes a bit of twisted branch may look like the 
arm of a settee or the leg of a tea-table. Procuring 
the first part suggests the quest for the other pieces 
and the fitting them together to make a natural 
looking, balanced, artistic piece. Rustic furniture 
to be good, should appear to have grown that way. 
There is too much of the kind that looks as if it were 
made to sell. The truth is that the more truly 
artistic it is the better price it will bring in the 
right market. Laurel wood is particularly adapted 
for rustic furniture. 

SELECTING SEED CORN 

By a careful study of what experts have to say 
about the best corn for seed, and of the photographs 



ODD JOBS 411 

of ears of prize corn, any young man of intelligence 
may learn to select from his father's field the best 
corn for seed. It may be that your father buys 
his seed corn from a seedsman. My experience is 
that seed corn bought in bulk contains a large 
number of poor grains. They probably shell the 
whole ear. The best farmers never 
plant grains from tips or butts of 
ears, since it costs just as much to 
plant and cultivate and harvest 
a runty corn stalk bearing a nubbin 
as it does a lusty, towering stalk 
with two good ears of 
corn on it. 

Find out what a 
good ear of corn looks 
like. Make note of all 
the points to be en- 
couraged. The habit 
of producing two good 
ears of corn is a good 
one to establish. Go 
through the field when 
the corn is ripe, before 
the buskers, and select the best ears, with all the 
points you have learned in mind. Take off 




Prize seed com 



412 OUTDOOR WORK 

the outer husks and draw the rest back, ex- 
posing the entire ear. When you have ten or 
a dozen ears braid the husks together, starting with 
three ears, adding one after another to the braid 
till all are secure. Fasten with strong twine and 
make a loop to hang the bunch by. Seed corn 
should hang for a few weeks in the open to cure, 
but should be taken inside before snow. You will 
have to use a good deal of ingenuity to keep chickens, 
rats, squirrels, and other thieves away from your 
seed corn. 

When spring comes the corn should be shelled, 
and every imperfect grain should be discarded. 
By selecting the seed in this way, demanding of 
each ear that it shall be perfect, you find the crop 
will improve, if cultivation is good, the soil well 
enriched, and the season normal. Every time a 
farmer boy uses his mind first in connection with 
any kind of work, the quality of work improves 
and his interest in his work increases. Selecting 
seed not only gives better corn but it helps make 
a better farmer. 

MAKING CIDER VINEGAR 

Every good apple year there are thousands of 
bushels of apples that go to waste. It doesn't pay 



ODD JOBS 413 

to pick and put them into barrels when the price of 
barrels is more than you can get for the apples. 
The farmer is the last man to learn how to make use 
of what ordinarily goes to waste. Nature is lavish 
always, but wastes nothing. The farmer has learned 
to be lavish and wasteful too. They say that every 
part of the pig is utilized in the packing house ex- 
cept the squeal. That is the principle which the 
farmer will have to live by if he would succeed. 
What can be done with those wasting apples? Let 
the boys have them to make into pure cider 
vinegar. Every one knows how vinegar has been 
adulterated, and now the law-makers have put their 
veto on the practice and a penalty to match the 
crime. 

There is nothing very difficult about the physical 
part of vinegar making. Nature does the hard work 
but we can aid nature by providing the ideal con- 
ditions for making the product we want. 

The best apples for making pure cider vinegar 
are clean, ripe apples. If you use green, dirty, de- 
cayed, or over-ripe apples, your vinegar will prob- 
ably not meet the lawful tests and your time and 
work will be wasted. Green apples have not enough 
sugar in them. The same is true of over-ripe apples. 
"But there isn't much sugar in cider vinegar," you 



414 OUTDOOR WORK 

say. No, that is true, but without sugar in the cider 
you wouldn't get any vinegar. If you were a chem- 
ist you could find out just how much sugar was 
contained in the juice of your apples. Unless 
the cider has 85 per cent, of sugar it will 
not make vinegar good enough to satisfy the 
requirements of the law. However, plenty is 
found in cider made from sound, ripe apples, 
and he who makes cider out of anything else 
deserves to fail. 

Expose any fruit juice to the air and it will change. 
We say, "Oh, that is fermented," and throw it 
away. But what is this ferment.'^ Set a glass of 
fresh apple juice in the sun and watch it. In a 
few days you can actually see that some change 
is taking place. It is "working," as they say. 
The sugar is changing to alcohol; so the chemists 
tell us. What makes it do this.^ The chemists 
must answer again. They say that there are yeast 
plants in the apple juice. How did they get there .^ 
We did not put yeast in the apple juice. No, but the 
air is full of the spores of wild yeast plants so the 
juice does not have to wait till we put in domestica- 
ted yeast from a little "silver" wrapper. As these 
yeast plants grow they cause the sugar in the juice 
to change to alcohol. There are lots of other wild 



ODD JOBS 415 

spores in the air and in the dirt which collects on 
the apples if they are left out very long. Some 
of these spores may be of a kind that would delay 
the fermentation. For this, if for no better reason, 
we should wash our cider apples. 

In a glass of cider set out in the sun it does not 
take long for the yeast plants to convert all the 
sugar to alcohol, because warmth hastens the work. 
In the barrel set in a cool cellar it takes longer, 
about six months. 

But you have no vinegar yet. You have nothing 
but "hard" cider which isn't fit for anything. But 
in the barrel along with the yeast plants are lots 
of other bacteria, to be seen under the microscope. 
Among them is a kind that causes alcohol to change 
to acetic acid. Did you ever pour off the vinegar 
from a jug and find a mass of jelly-like substance 
stopping the mouth of the jug.^ They called it 
*' mother" didn't they.f^ This mother contains great 
numbers of acetic acid makers and if placed in your 
barrels will hasten the changes that fit the hard 
cider for use on the table. 

The making of cider vinegar is almost all profit 
for there is very little outlay for materials and very 
little work is required. It does take some knowledge 
of what to do and when. A little study and experi- 



416 OUTDOOR WORK 

ence makes success almost certain. A bulletin 
of the New York State Experiment Station at 
Geneva gives the following directions, somewhat 
abbreviated here, for making good cider vinegar at 
home: 

"Use sound ripe apples, picked before they have 
become dirty or crushed. Observe ordinary pre- 
cautions to secure cleanliness in grinding and press- 
ing, and use no water. Let the juice stand a few 
days to settle, then draw off the clear liquid into 
barrels that have been cleansed and treated with 
steam or boiling water. Do not fill more than three 
fourths full. Put a loose plug of cotton into the 
bung hole. If kept at a temperature of fifty to 
forty -five degrees Fahr. the alcoholic fermentation 
will be complete in about six months. This time 
can be shortened to three months by keeping a 
temperature of sixty-five to seventy degrees in the 
storage room and by adding one cake of Fleisch- 
mann's compressed yeast dissolved in a little 
water, to every five gallons of juice. When 
the cider stops * working' you will know that the 
sugar has all been changed to alcohol. The clear 
liquid should now be drawn off, the barrels rinsed 
and filled again. To each barrel should now be 
added from two to four quarts of good vinegar 



ODD JOBS 417 

containing some * mother.' If kept at a tempera- 
ture of sixty -five to seventy degrees Fahr. the vine- 
gar may be ready for use in six months. If kept 
very cool it may be two years. When sour enough 
to be ' just right * the barrels should be filled as 
full as possible and tightly corked or the sourness 
may disappear." 

MAKING GRAPE JUICE 

Any girl with a little experience in canning fruit 
can make for home use and for sale a harmless and 
delectable beverage out of the surplus grapes. 
Every good grape year on the farm there comes the 
question of what to do with the grapes. A little 
jelly is made when the grapes are green but most 
people prefer currant jelly or blackberry or crab 
apple. Canned grapes are pronounced "no good" 
by all the family, and grape marmalade is full of 
"splinters of glass," though how they got there who 
can say.f* 

The housekeeping magazines give receipts for 
preserving grapes but cold storage alone gives good 
results and few farms have cold storage plants. 
Those grapes hang there by the bushel and try as 
you may you do not get them all eaten fresh. 

Grape juice is not wine. If you should try to 



418 OUTDOOR WORK 

make wine you would probably fail. But unfer- 
mented grape juice is easier to make than jelly and 
as it needs no sugar your investment is small. Grape 
juice has food value, as it contains more solid matter 
than milk, and is recommended as a drink for 
children and for invalids. In many European 
countries *' grape cures" have long been popular. 
In the pure, unadulterated, unfermented juice of 
the grape we have a palatable, nourishing food and 
a refreshing drink in one. It is highly recommended 
as a preventive of some diseases, a cure for others, 
and as a restorative of general health. 

So much for the product. Now how is it made? 
It is possible to make grape juice from start to 
finish in the open air. If the grapes grow on an 
arbour what more delightful occupation can you 
imagine than spending a day or two converting the 
perfect fruit into nectar.?* Idling in a hammock 
may appeal to some, but a row of shining fruit jars 
worth seventy-five cents apiece looks better to an 
enterprising girl than a finished novel. 

You will need a table, a rocking chair, a large 
basket and scissors, granite pans and double boiler, 
an oil or gasolene stove, clean jelly bag and flannel 
filter, jars or bottles, corks, rubbers, etc. 

When the grapes are just right to eat out of hand 



ODD JOBS 419 

they are right for grape juice. Green or over-ripe 
grapes are not worth working over. Discard all 
unsound fruit, wash, and crush. Put into a freshly 
washed bag of coarse, strong muslin, tie securely 
and twist and squeeze it until the juice is all out. 
Two people can work to advantage at this job. 

The juice should now be put into a stone jar 
set in a pan of water or heated in a double boiler. 
It is just at this point that most people make a 
mistake and destroy the fine flavour of the grape 
by boiling the juice. It should never boil. If you 
have a thermometer use it now. The object of 
heating this juice is to destroy the yeast spores and 
other organisms which have alighted on the grapes 
as they hung in the arbour and which are so small 
that they came right through the mesh of the 
muslin bag. A temperature of one hundred and 
eighty degrees to two hundred degrees Fahr. is high 
enough. Take the juice from the fire when the two 
hundred Fahr. is reached. A thermometer is not ab- 
solutely necessary. When the juice begins to steam 
it is getting close up to two hundred and twelve 
degrees Fahr., the boiling point, which you must 
avoid. 

Making prime quality unfermented grape juice 
requires two forenoons. If you want your jars to be 



420 OUTDOOR WORK 

clear from top to bottom instead of muddy with 
sediment you will set the juice away in an enamelled 
or glass vessel until morning, when you will see 
why this precaution is necessary. With greatest 
care dip the clear liquid off and filter it. A flannel 
bag made in the shape of a cone with a stiff wire 
or wooden ring at the top to hold it open, is the best 
filter. Several thicknesses of flannel or felt are 
better than one. All the tiny particles of sediment 
will be caught in the woollen meshes and the juice 
will be pure. The last traces of settlings, will be 
removed and the liquid will be clear. The colour 
and flavour will depend on the kind of grape used. 
Put the filtered juice into bottles or fruit jars 
that have been sterilized by boiling in water. Do 
not fill them quite full. Wiping is unnecessary. 
Fit a false bottom made of a thin board or slats 
into the bottom of the washboiler and set the 
jars of grape juice with rubbers and covers on but 
not screwed down in on this. Put water into the 
boiler till it comes up to the shoulders of the jars. 
Heat now until the water is on the point of boiling, 
but do not let it boil. Remove jars from the water 
and screw down the covers. If bottles are used, 
clean, sterilized corks must be put in, while the juice 
is still in the hot water. If the corks are very tight 



ODD JOBS 421 

further sealing is not required, but wax or paraflSne 
is put over them by cautious persons to make as- 
surance doubly sure. 

Quart jars are probably most economical and will 
find a ready sale. Grape juice will ferment very 
soon after unsealing and should be used immediately. 
Even a small family will have no difficulty in con- 
suming a quart if given the opportunity. Many 
delicious desserts can be made with this juice com- 
bined with sugar, egg$, gelatine, cream, lemons, and 
other fruits. 

MAKING LEAF MOULD 

Every year I see boys and girls raking leaves from 
the lawns and either piling them in the street or in 
the back yard and then burning them. Nobody 
likes an outdoor fire more than I do, whether it is 
a real camp fire, a little back yard faggot fire just 
enough to roast a few potatoes and onions and play 
gypsyj or a big blazing bonfire, almost dangerous 
and wholly splendid. What I don't like is a sickly, 
smouldering pile of leaves sending out a suffocating 
smudge, bursting with sudden flame at night and 
having to be put out after you had your slippers on 
and had begun a new book. Such a fire is a nuisance 
to you and to the neighbourhood and no satisfaction. 



422 OUTDOOR WORK 

Burning leaves is like burning money. That is 
quite another way of looking at it. "Why, most 
people have to pay out money to get their leaves 
taken away," you say. True, but that is because 
we are such a lot of wasters. We are just beginning 
to learn to be economical, because we must. To 
make a long story short, turn your leaves into money 
by composting them. 

For greenhouse work pure leaf mould is a necessity 
and the supply of the real article is never equal to 
the demand. Ask the florist in your town where he 
gets leaf mould and how much it costs him. 

Making leaf mould is simple. All you have to do 
is to rake the leaves into a pile where they can lie 
still and rot. To make a really neat job and lose 
none of your work or leaves make a frame of boards 
a foot high or so and as large as you think your leaves 
will require. Set this frame in some part of the yard 
where it will not look unsightly but as near the source 
of leaf supply as is permissible. If you have to 
carry the leaves by. wheelbarrow you will see the 
force of this. Use a pony and cart for the job if 
you have them. A big box or barrel on a wheel- 
barrow is better than the wheelbarrow alone. Get 
a layer of leaves a foot deep, then tramp it. If 
water is handy, wetting them with a few pailfuls 



ODD JOBS 423 

would make them pack well. Put on layer after 
layer of leaves if pure leaf mould is to be made. 

Lay boards over the top to hold the leaves down 
or the autumn winds will scatter them for you. 
Forking over a few times will hasten the process 
of decay. A very small quantity of leaf mould for 
home use can be made in a store box or barrel. 
This should not be water tight. Let the leaves be 
exposed to all the elements; the rain, the air, 
freezing and thawing, help on the process of decay. 

Leaves are a very valuable ingredient in the 
making of compost for the garden. I have from an 
expert gardener this receipt for his favourite 
"garden fruit cake" 

Three parts selected leaves. 

Three parts cow manure. 

Two parts garden soil. 

One part kitchen refuse and weeds. 

One part pasture sod. 

Compost these in alternating layers for one, two, 
or three years under cover. The result is a rich, 
brown, moist compound which, added to common 
garden soil at suitable times, is warranted to raise 
flowers and vegetables fit for the queen's table. 

Now then, instead of burning your leaves, go 
out and gather all you can from the neighbour's 



424 OUTDOOR WORK 

yard as well as your own and make leaf mould. Com- 
bine the boys on the street into a "Leaf Mould Syn- 
dicate" and get the local florists interested in a 
home-made product. 

MAKING LAVENDER STICKS 

The weaving of lavender sticks has been de- 
scribed to me as "the harmless occupation of old- 
fashioned fingers." In these days when the revival 
of old-time industries is so often undertaken, it is 
well to learn from our aunts or our great-aunts some 
of the fancy work that employed their elegant leisure 
when they were girls. The lavender stick is such 
a sweet and dainty object that I hope for it a re- 
newed popularity. It is one of the always acceptable 
gifts the Pacific coast can send to the Atlantic 
where it is so hard to make lavender grow. I might 
say here that there is good reason to advise the 
growing of lavender in the light limestone soil of 
some of our Southern states. Immense quantities 
are used in the manufacture of lavender water 
and perfumery, and although the dried flowers are 
retailed as a preventive for clothes moths, I have 
grave doubts about that. 

The best way to learn how to make lavender 
sticks is to have some dear old lady show you. 



ODD JOBS 



425 



Failing this you may try to 
follow these directions and 
the picture that goes with 
them. Late June is the best 
time, September the next best. 
The lavender must be in full 
flower. If too young the stems 
will cure limp. The finest odour 
passes with the going to seed. 
Cut the flower stalks in clear 
weather and before the heat of 
the day. 

As some lavender sticks should 
be shorter and some longer to suit 
their various purposes, you should 
next sort the stalks into groups 
according to length. For a hand- 
kerchief box nine short ones would 
be right. To make a large "stick'* 
for a linen closet shelf choose 
twenty -five of the longest, heaviest 
heads. Always have an odd 
number. Strip off the leaves, draw 
the stems down till the heads 
are all on a level, then tie them 
"gently but firmly, under their 




A lavender stick 



426 OUTDOOR WORK 

chins" with soft cotton yarn that will hold but 
not cut. Use plenty of string and leave very 
long ends. Build the thistle-like head into a 
shapely oval — but not with cotton, after 
the way of the Philistines. Plump it out with a 
little sheaf made of the heads that are too small 
to use, and add a few leaves to round it out. With 
those long string ends wind the head, now, and tie 
securely. 

The next step is one where skill and care are 
necessary. Each stem is to be bent directly back- 
ward at a sharp angle and it will be a wonder if you 
do not break every other one. Crease each stem 
over your thumb-nail before turning it back over 
the head. When all are safely reversed, double 
one end of a bolt of lavender ribbon over one stalk, 
close to the top and begin to weave. The simplest 
weaving is the most artistic,under one stalk and over 
the next, passing round and round till the head is 
covered. At this point it is best to fasten the end 
of the ribbon, wind the stems with common string 
and begin on another till you have brought all to 
the same stage. Lay them all away for a month 
to cure. You will find that the weaving will then 
have to be tightened about the head. Now wind 
the ribbon tightly round the handle and fasten it 



ODD JOBS 427 

there. A tuft of loops at the end is a simple and old- 
timey finish. The less attempt at decoration the 
better. A lavender stick is a very acceptable gift 
for one who is fond of its perfume and can detect 
the aroma of homely sentiment that mingles with 
its sweetness. 

DRYING CORN 

In my girlhood the surplus sweet corn was not 
left to dry on the stalks. It does not make very 
good fodder. The best ears were marked and left 
to ripen for seed, but the surplus green corn was 
dried. The boys would bring in a bushel or so of 
ears in the husk. We prepared these as carefully 
as if for immediate use on the table. Every silk 
was removed. The ears were then put into boiling 
water a few at a time and left only five or six minutes, 
just long enough to "set" the milk. As soon as 
the corn had cooled suflSciently we began to cut it 
off, with thin, sharp knives. With the butt of the 
ear resting on the flattest big platter, one sliced 
from top to bottom. We had orders not to cut 
deep the first time — just to take off the tops of 
the grains. The next cut was thin, too, and came 
off in a slice which fell apart. We cut three slices, 
at least, before we came to the cob. By this means 



428 OUTDOOR WORK 

we obtained a final product far superior to that 
of the neighbours who made one cut suffice. When 
a platter was full, the corn was spread evenly and 
put out in the sun, on a long table and covered with 
netting to keep off flies. When partially dry we 
transferred it to a large cloth and continued the 
drying until every vestige of moisture was gone 
from it. It was then put into a loose muslin bag 
and hung up near the ceiling where mice and damp- 
ness could not get at it. I have eaten evaporated 
corn, and find it a poor substitute for the sun- 
dried article. 

To prepare dried corn for the table wash well, soak- 
over night, and then steaiii slowly on the back of. 
the kitchen stove from morning till late afternoon, 
with salt to taste. By this time most of the water 
will have been absorbed or evaporated. The 
corn will be soft and all its native sweetness will 
be right there. Add a generous libation of cream, 
a lump of butter, a whisk of pepper, and you have 
a delectable dish. 

MAKING A TENNIS COURT 

The largest item in all the estimates for making 
a tennis court is for labour. If a boys' club can 
supply this they can have a court without expense 



ODD JOBS 429 

except for the wire netting and the necessary posts. 
A standard double court is seventy -eight feet by 
thirty-six. Choose a well-drained piece of ground; 
the more nearly level the better. Locate the 
courts with reference to the time of day when they 
will be most used and the direction of the sun's 
beams at that hour. 

The first job is to get rid of the grass and weeds, 
root and branch. If a plough is used do not begin 
the levelling until every root is gone. Turning 
grass under is bad practice. Some kinds of grass 
can grow no matter which end is up. Next with 
rakes make the surface fairly level. Level is one of 
those adjectives that can not be compared. If a 
court is level it can't be any leveller, and to be right 
it must be done with a straight edge and a spirit 
level. If there is one boy in whom you all have 
confidence, it is a good plan to elect him boss of the 
job and follow his instructions. "Team work" 
is the right thing in this kind of a job, just as in 
games. When the court is level it must be rolled 
and rolled and rolled again, with the heaviest roller 
you can get. 

A surface of ordinary dirt does not wear well. 
Some people prefer to spread on a layer of ashes, 
next three inches of sand, soil, and clay mixed. 



430 OUTDOOR WORK 

Roll each layer thoroughly. For a top finish 
a very fine gravel is used on some courts, sand is 
used on others. You will probably use that which 
is most available. Clay is hard to work with, 
but when overlaid with fine sand makes a hard 
court on which the swiftest experts can play with 
enjoyment. 

The care of the court should be taken week about, 
two boys working together. The roller should be 
used often, especially after a rain, and worn spots 
mended immediately before they get bigger. 

Most clubs count in an expensive marker when 
estimating the cost of tennis. An ingenious boy 
can make one for nothing. A square varnish tin or 
olive oil can holding a gallon or more can easily 
be held by a framework upon a wheelbarrow or 
wheel hoe in such a way that the drip from 
two nail holes will fall upon the broad rim of the 
wheel. Fold a piece of paper into funnel shape, 
fill the can with thin whitewash and paint mixed 
and you are as well equipped as if you had spent 
five dollars for a marker. 

If conditions favour a grass court the sod should 
be taken off and the ground beneath spaded, raked, 
and made level. Then the sod should be matched 
and laid accurately, then rolled, sprinkled, and 



ODD JOBS 431 

rolled again; for three days at least the rolling 
and sprinkling should be repeated. 

SHOVELLING SNOW 

The boys of our neighbourhood made an abun- 
dance of pocket-money in the winter time by combin- 
ing into a "Snow Shovellers Union." Most of the 
men on our street take early trains and have very 
little time, and even less inclination to shovel snow. 
The boys are out early before the snow gets packed 
on the sidewalks. They work by the job or by the 
hour, whichever the employer prefers. 

At first the boys expected the employers to 
furnish the tools. But that didn't work very well. 
To make work a pleasure one must have his tools 
right and an expert snow shoveller does not want 
to use a dilapidated spade on one job, a short- 
handled shovel here, and a long-handled one there. 
He wants snow shovelling tools and after a little 
experience he knows what he wants. 

The tools can be made by the boys. Our boys 
made a mosteflScient plough for walks, out of cheap 
store boxes, and a scraper for steps that fit every 
corner accurately so that one scrape did the trick 
and no false motions to waste time and strength. 
For informal paths to chicken house, garden, etc., 



432 OUTDOOR WORK 

a shovel made of light barrel staves sawed in halves 
was found to be better than an expensive iron-bound 
shovel from the department store. 

If there is a lame boy on your street take him 
into the Union too; although he can't keep up with 
you at the shovel, he can have a book, keep track of 
the time each boy can work, call at patrons' doors 
to arrange about their work, and these things are 
just as important as the actual shovelling. 

MOWING LAWNS 

In summer the Snow Shovellers Union can re- 
form into the '*Lawn Mowers and Irrigators, Lim- 
ited." Every year I used to send my lawn mower 
to a "tinker" who charged me one dollar and 
twenty-five cents for sharpening it. I learned 
one day and it made me sad, that a lawn mower 
properly cared for keeps itself sharp. Any boy who 
is strong enough to run a lawn mower ought to be 
smart enough to take care of one. He needs to 
know how the machine is put together, what parts 
do the work and where the wear comes on the parts. 
The directions which come with a good machine 
are worth reading. The man who sells the mower 
may not be able to explain any part you don't 
understand. His business may be to sell, only. 



ODD JOBS 4SS 

If you go into the hardware store and find the man 
who knows all about lawn mowers, he will be only 
too glad to show you how to run the machine so 
that it will do its work and last. It is to his interest 
to have you recommend his machine. Make your- 
self familiar with a machine in perfect working order. 
Your ears and your eyes ought to tell you when it 
is going wrong. 

It is, above all, of greatest importance to know 
how to adjust a lawn mower. A wrench, a screw- 
driver, and an oil can should be your constant com- 
panions. Go over the machine before you begin 
and put it in shape. It is ten minutes well spent. 
Tighten screws, oil the parts that rub, adjust the 
knife to the kind and condition of the grass. When 
the job is done, look the mower over. If a screw is 
lost be sure to supply a new one before the next 
using; clean the machine and put it away in a 
dry place. 

UTILIZING WOOD ASHES 

Boys who have as part of their daily work the 
cleaning out of ashes would do well to stop and 
consider before they dump their pails. Coal ashes 
are as nearly worthless as anything I know of al- 
though they can be used in making a tennis court, 
and are even advised by some for a very stiff garden 



434 OUTDOOR WORK 

soil. A garden must be pretty bad off to be im- 
proved by coal ashes. 

But there are thousands of cords of wood 
burned every year and wood ashes are very val- 
uable. There is no fertilizer equal to them for 
certain purposes. Not only [are they valuable at 
home, but they are an article of commerce, and 
have a market value. Who has a better right 
to the ashes than the boy who manages the ash 
pan? 

Barrels are the most convenient receptacles to 
store ashes in. Cheap boxes come next. They 
should be tight and kept under cover. Leaching 
takes the value out of wood ashes. 

PLANTING CROCUSES ON THE LAWN 

Did you ever see crocuses, yellow, lavender, and 
white, scattered informally in the lawn, coming 
into blossom with the earliest springing grass. 
One fall we tried the experiment of poking a crocus 
bulb down in the hole where we took out a dande- 
lion and the result was charming. There are phil- 
osophers who profess to a liking for dandelions in 
the lawn. Perhaps it is Hobson's choice with them, 
as with many, but although the dandelion flower 
is bright as gold the leaves are a real nuisance. 
They are coarse and rank and they resist the lawn- 



ODD JOBS 435 

mower, and discourage the fine grasses. Except 
when in blossom they are a disfiguring feature. 
Crocuses are certainly more delicate in flower than 
dandelions and their leaves are more like grass. 
Moreover they die down early and are out of the 
way of the lawn mower. So instead of just digging 
out a dandelion or a thistle and leaving a bare hole, 
I recommend that you poke in a crocus bulb next 
fall. Your reward will come in gold and purple. 

MAKING ICE 

Lots of us get along without ice in winter because 
we cannot afford to buy it all the year round. We 
put things outside and they freeze, we keep them in 
the kitchen and they spoil. The butter is either 
too hard or too soft all the time. 

Boys and girls like ice-cream the year round and 
yet many of us do without it in the winter time 
because the iceman does not come around. Some- 
times you may have thought when you broke the 
ice in the watering trough that there was nearly 
enough to make a freezer of ice-cream. 

Did it not occur to you that you could make 
home-made ice, supply the refrigerator in coldest 
weather, and make ice-cream whenever you want it? 
All you need is the cold weather and a heavy tin 



436 OUTDOOR WORK 

pail. Fill the pail with clean water some clear, cold 
night and stand it where it will get the greatest ex- 
posure. If the mercury is a little below zero it will 
freeze a coat of ice two or more inches thick on top 
and sides of the pail. Turn the pail upside down on 
a bench and turn enough hot water over it to loosen 
the pail; then take it off. The ice on the bottom will 
be thin. Break this and dip out all of the water, 
but about two inches. This will freeze very quickly 
in cold weather and you can put in more. Keep 
filling it up until your ice pail is solid. It is then 
ready for the refrigerator. 

From making one block of ice in a heavy tin pail 
it is an easy step to making a winter supply to store 
in sawdust where the sun cannot melt it during a 
thaw and where you can get at it when needed. 
From this the logical conclusion is that a man 
and his boys could make a supply of ice for both 
summer and winter by following the same tactics. 

How well I remember the hardships of the ice 
harvesters of my home neighbourhood. The ice had 
to be cut in the river three miles away, and hauled 
up a bad hill. If the roads were good the ice was 
bad as a rule. Good sleighing meant ice covered 
with snow. There was always anxiety for fear we 
should not get a supply, and often the houses were 



ODD JOBS 437 

filled with thin cakes, for fear the cold weather was 
over for the year. Then the hauling and the cutting 
in the bitter weather was bad for men and teams. 
The ice was river ice and we knew it was unsafe. 

A writer in Country Life describes how he made 
his supply of home-made ice. He first had a tinner 
make heavy tin boxes of a size convenient to handle. 
He had them made an inch smaller at the bottom 
than at the top and the top was bound over a heavy 
wire. When the cold weather came the clean pans 
were filled from the well. The cakes were turned out 
of the pans next day and dipped and filled just as 
described above, as solid cakes formed. These 
were packed in the ice house for the summer's supply 
as fast as made. The cost was less in time and cash, 
than putting up *'wild ice," even including the cost 
of pans, which can, of course, be used over and over, 
year after year. 

CUTTING SEED POTATOES 

Cutting seed potatoes is a job that most boys and 
girls dislike and no wonder. It takes so long, is 
so dirty, your thumb gets so scored and even cut 
seriously. But most fathers want the potatoes cut 
before planting and who is to do it but the boys and 
girls? Two ingenious boys invented a contraption 



438 OUTDOOR WORK 

which decreased the time and labour to a minimum 
and almost made the job a pleasure. This de- 
scription of their potato cutter is adapted from 
Farming for April, nineteen hundred and seven. A 
dry goods box holding several bushels was fitted 
with four strong legs, just long enough to lift the 
box to a height convenient to sit by. At the bot- 




For cutting seed potatoes 

tom of one side of the box a board was removed 
to let the potatoes roll out on a shelf attached be- 
neath the opening. The shelf should have a rim two 
or three inches high and there should be a crack 
where shelf and box come together to let the dust 
sift down. The knife is driven into the end of a short 
piece of plank and held with fence staples. The boy 



ODD JOBS 439 

sits on the plank. The potato is pushed forward 
against the sharp blade and the pieces drop into the 
basket. A man can cut forty bushels of potatoes 
in a day with this outfit. 

The work ought to be done out under a tree, and 
if the boys want to wear gloves to keep their hands 
clean and smooth for more delicate work, I should 
encourage them to do so. 




Rosebush before pruning 
PRUNING 

When I see a lot of ignorant labourers put onto 
the job of pruning trees, my blood fairly boils. 



440 OUTDOOR WORK 

Their work, unless overseen by an expert, is pure 
butchery. Many a noble tree has been so mangled 
by saw and axe that it has become an easy prey to 
all sorts of diseases. 

Pruning is work that requires intelligence. In 
orchard and door yard any one with the strength 

to wield a saw or shears can 
do the annual pruning. A 
woman can do it as I can 
testify, except occasionally 
where large limbs are to be 
handled. Such occasions 
seldom arise on a well-cared- 
for place. It is impossible to 
treat the whole subject of 
pruning in one short chapter, 
but there is nothing difficult 
'^■^^/M^^^M^^^r— t^ understand about the 
Rosebush afterpruning principles or practicc. In 
ten minutes an expert grape pruner could show a 
pupil how to prune a grape-vine so as to produce 
the best and largest crop. Each kind of shrub 
whether for fruit or flowers requires its special treat- 
ment. It takes experience to acquire judgment but 
the principles are easy to learn and to practise. 
You should go to a book on pruning to learn 




ODD JOBS 441 

just how to prune the various kinds of shrubs, 
vines, and trees. 

But if there is a hmb to be cut off a tree in the 
door yard who is Hkely to be delegated to the job? 
Every boy ought to know how to do this right. You 
may be acquainted with the boy who sat on the Hmb 
and sawed between the tree and himself, but you 
will certainly not share his fate. When you use the 
pruning shears on the branches and twigs of a tree 
or shrub you are, so to speak, cutting its finger- 
nails or hair : but when you go up with a saw you are 
performing a far more serious operation. Do not 
forget that the life processes of the tree, the circu- 
lation of the blood, the assimilation of the food, 
the respiration, all go on right under the bark. 
The "heart" of the tree is a misnomer. That 
fresh moist layer which is uncovered by the skin- 
ning of a tree is the only part of the tree which is 
really actively alive and at #work. This layer, 
called the cambium, extends like a tight-fitting gar- 
ment over the entire tree. Every tiny twig and 
spur is overlaid with it. If you ever had an "in- 
fected" finger from a scratch or pin prick or cut 
you have some idea of the danger the tree is exposed 
to when the cambium layer is laid bare and the 
wound neglected. Compare the two drawings on 



442 OUTDOOR WORK 

this page. Look at the trees in your yard. Are 
there some like No. 1 and others Hke No. 2? In 
No. 1 the pruner cut a branch off close up to 
the main trunk. The wound was dressed with 
thick paint to close the pores. All around the edge 
of the wound was the cut edge of the cambium layer. 





The rigM way. The The wrong way. The 

wound is healing stub prevents healing 

A roll of new tissue formed there, covering a part 
of the wound the first year. In a year or two more 
the roll became broad enough to close over the 
smooth base where the severed limb was. The 
wound is healed. But look at the long stubs of 
No 2. That was the work of a "tree butcher." 
Already the stub has begun to rot and the injury 
has gone far into the tree, past cure. You have 
seen a fine board ruined by a knot hole? That 
knot hole was made by careless pruning. Have 
you seen beautiful "curly" places in fine woodwork.^* 



ODD JOBS 443 

Those curls or "eyes" are made by the healing over 
of places where limbs came off. As the cambium 
adds layer after layer over it, the base of the old limb 
becomes more and more deeply buried in the wood. 
Learn the principles of pruning: cut off the branch, 
no matter how small, close to the trunk [or larger 
branch from which it grew; cover the wound with a 
dressing to prevent decay. Trees, shrubs, vines, 
and bushes should be pruned every year. Cut out 
all dead wood, and then prune to shape the tree* or 
shrub as you want it or to produce the greatest 
quantity of fruit, blossoms or branches. 

CLEANING RUGS 

The sanitary home has never a carpet these days, 
but rugs on bare floors. These rugs, if small enough 
to handle every week, make the semi-annual old 
bugbear of house-cleaning a thing of the past. What 
could be more dreary than to come home from school 
some afternoon and find the floors littered with 
flattened old straw, so gray with dust as to be 
scarcely recognizable? Getting that straw out was 
the boys' work, the girls did the sweeping and 
mother washed the floor. How cheerless the days 
that followed ! How damp the floors, how extra care- 
ful we had to be not to carry in dirt on our way to 



444 OUTDOOR WORK 

bed! The whole house wore a dejected expression 
reflected by the family. All because of those 
miserable carpets. They had to be beaten, too, 
and the clouds of dust that had to be breathed 
before we heard the welcome call, "That's enough 
now. Don't whip that carpet all to pieces. Fold 
it up and bring it in." As we folded it we realized 
how far from clean it really was and how we longed 
to turn the hose on it. But no one had the courage 
to suggest such an unorthodox proceeding. Prob- 
ably the colour would all run and the carpet would 
shrink and everything. But anyhow we wished 
it was really clean, now that so much discomfort had 
been endured to clean it. 

Rugs on bare floors are preferable. They can be 
swept and beaten every week and they can be washed. 
No rug should be hung on a line to be beaten. It 
is bad for the rug and a waste of energy. A rug- 
beating rack can be made which will save the wear 
on the rugs and get them more nearly clean than any 
other dry method I know of. It is described, by 
Mr. W. C. Egan, who devised it, as follows: 

Make a frame of four by four pine timbers, 
braced across the corners. It should be some- 
what bigger than the biggest rug you expect 
to beat. Stretch galvanized iron fencing over 



ODD JOBS 445 

this frame and staple it securely all round. The 
best place for this frame is at the side of the barn. 




f 



Rug-beating frame up against the bam 

Strong strap hinges should be used to attach it to a 
piece of four by four spiked to the barn at a height 



446 OUTDOOR WORK 

convenient for your beating. When the frame is not 
in use it is pushed up and rests against the side of 
the barn, held in place by hooks. A rope and two 
pulleys enable one to raise and lower the frame easily. 
When down, the frame rests on swinging legs made 
of inch iron pipe and attached to the frame at the 
outer corners. The rug should be laid on the netting 
pile downward. 

Rug-beating is hard work no matter what kind of 
tools one has. But who does not love to ply the 
hose.'* I made up my mind once that a rug that had to 
have an expensive compressed air bath or stay dirty 
was not living up to its function as a sanitary floor 
covering. I experimented with an all-wool rug, some 
good white soap, warm rain water, and a scrubbing 
brush. A good lather was laid first on the back, then I 
threw discretion to the winds and lathered the face 
of the thing. I scrubbed it as if my life depended 
upon making the colours run, if they would. Then 
I let the children turn the hose on it. We turned 
it over and over and over again, till it was very, 
^ V wet. It was also clean. We left it on the 
grass in the shade the first day. Then we laid it 
still damp, face down, on the clean, dry floor of the 
porCi- where the sun could get at it and the breeze. 
It was dry by the night of the second day and so 



ODD JOBS 447 

clean that it was a real joy to handle it. One by 
one we put every rug in the house through the same 
course of treatment. A couple of Wiltons, a few 
of Brussels carpeting, some that were woven out 
of old ingrain carpets, the rag ones, and finally the 
precious Orientals went through the water cure. 




Rug-beating frame, down in use 

Before I dared do this last act, I got advice from a 
rug man, who said that really good rugs would suffer 
no harm from such treatment. But one never 
believes until he tries it, and now we all believe, 
and our rugs are more beautiful than before. We 
treated the best rugs very gently, of course, but none 
the less thoroughly, and we dried them face up on 
the hard floor right in the sun part of the time. It 
takes about three days and nights to get the 
dampness all out. 



448 OUTDOOR WORK 

Good rugs ought never to be treated roughly. 
They should be swept gently with the nap, and never 
beaten with a whip, hung on the line, or shaken. 
Lay on a soft carpet of grass or on a rug-beating frame 
and beat gently with a flat rattan beater. When 
rolled, roll with the nap; never fold them. 



XI 

MAKING THE COUNTRY A BETTER PLACE TO 
LIVE IN 

I ONCE asked Professor Bailey, "What is the 
most important farm crop raised in the United 
States?" 

Without a moment's hesitation he answered, 
"Boys and girls." 

Of course they are. 

The best farmers, the real bone and sinew of the 
country, are the kind that raise the crops themselves, 
without much help from the outside. They grow 
nearly every thing they eat, and exchange their 
surplus for the food and clothing that they can't 
raise. There is a type of farm life where the family 
is brought up on the principle that what is too 
poor to sell is good enough to eat. The boys and 
girls of such a family are too good for such a life. 
They do not stay in the country. Like the big 
apples, the prize potatoes, and the gilt-edge butter, 
though raised on the farm, they are consumed in 
the city. 

449 



450 OUTDOOR WORK 

The country is the best place in the world for 
boys and girls to grow up in, just because it is the 
country. But there are ways in which country life 
can be improved and if the grown folks are too busy 
raising crops, the young folks must head the cam- 
paign which is to make the country a better place 
to live in. 

Since this is a book on outdoor work we cannot 
consider ways of making the life indoors more 
attractive, more comfortable, more convenient, and 
more sanitary, but concern ourselves with outdoor 
problems only. 

Boys and girls, stop and think. What can you do 
to make your own particular corner of the country 
a better place for you and your companions to 
live in? When a crowd of boys meet together, 
what do they talk about? Are they interested in 
local affairs or do they tell each other of the great 
things they expect to do when they get away? 
A wise old man once said, "In a republic you 
ought to begin to train a child for good citizenship 
on the day of its birth." 

Are you going to be a good citizen? Are you 
patriotic? Do you salute the flag at school, and 
then go out and break the game laws? Train now 
for citizenship. There is more patriotism in obeying 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 451 

the laws of your home, your school, your town, 
and your state than there is in parading with flags 
and band in the National Guards. Good citizenship 
begins at home. How can you make your own home 
a more desirable place for your brothers and sisters 
to live in? Take a look at the house. Is it plain 
and unadorned and uncomfortable.'^ Are the sur- 
roundings bare and ugly.^ Have you had experience 
in building, painting, and planting? If you can 
help build a com crib, you can make a porch over the 
front door or a sidewalk connecting the back door 
with the pump or the milk house. If you can help 
paint the barn, why not the house? If you can plant 
trees in the orchard, why not shrubs in the door 
yard, and vines over the porch? Don't think you 
must have expensive pillars and fancy railings. 
They will not look as well as rustic work or pillars 
of home-made cement. The vines will soon cover 
the porch with their greenery if given half a chance. 

OUTDOOR CLUBS 

Have you a boys' club in your neighbourhood? 
Or a girls' club? You used to have a literary society 
in school, and it failed? Why was that? The 
boys didn't take any interest in it. 

Why not have a club that the boys will take an 



452 OUTDOOR WORK 

interest in and a club that the girls will take an 
interest in? What kinds of clubs do boys like? 
Athletic clubs where they wrestle, box, turn hand- 
springs, have jumping, skating, walking, and running 
matches, and play such games of skill and endurance 
as hare and hounds, pitching horseshoes, and base- 
ball. They like all sorts of clubs that get real 
things done, like raising prize corn or cotton or 
pigs or training colts or steers or dogs. Boys and 
girls like to compete for prizes. How boys or girls 
will work to do something so much better than any 
other boy or girl in the crowd that the judges will 
award the prize to them. It is hard in contests 
like these to be able to walk up like a true sportsman 
and congratulate the winner. But a boy can learn 
to do it; so can a girl. All over the United States 
boys are banding together to raise better corn, 
better cotton, better chickens, better fruit. North, 
west, east, and south, thousands of boys are rais- 
ing corn. They test their seed, prepare the soil, 
plant, cultivate, and harvest the crop, weigh it, 
take it to the exhibition where they compare it 
with other boys' crops, and see for themselves who 
has the best yield. One boy, a member of the 
Winnebago County Farmer Boys' Experiment Club 
took first prize of fifteen dollars in gold for the best 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 453 

ten ears of corn. This club has about eleven hundred 
members. There is a Winnebago County Girls* 
Home Culture Club with an equally large member- 
ship. These boys and girls are growing up to be 
good citizens right there in the country, where they 
were born. They don't have to go to the city to 
find education or good manners or a good time. 
The fathers and mothers, the school teachers, the 
ministers, and the county superintendent of schools 
all work together in Winnebago County, 111., and 
they can everywhere. 

The boys in your home school can form a Boys' 
Agricultural Club now. The first thing you need 
is information about other clubs. Your club will 
not be just like the others. It ought not to be. 
But if you know how the others are managed it will 
help you to manage yours. Send to the Secretary 
of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, and ask for 
Farmers' Bulletin No. 385 on Boys' and Girls' 
Agricultural Clubs. On page fifteen of this bulletin 
are suggestions as to an invitation to be sent 
out for the first meeting. If your teacher is willing 
you can hold the first meeting some Friday after- 
noon in the early spring at the school-house. If 
the teacher is not yet interested hold the meeting 
at some home in the neighbourhood. If you are 



454 OUTDOOR WORK 

acquainted with the county superintendent or the 
school commissioner, tell him about the club you 
want to start, and maybe he will arrange for the 
first meeting and get all the boys and girls in the 
county organized. You could have a local chapter 
of the club, with local exhibits and local prizes; then 
you could have a space at the county fair, and 
members of different clubs all over the county could 
compete for first prize. 

The bulletin gives suggestions for a constitution, 
enrollment of members, and a scheme for cards on 
which to keep a record of the crop you are going 
to grow. There are rules, too, that each person 
who competes for prizes must observe. 

A good many boys' clubs start in with growing a 
crop of com, and girls' clubs with bread-making. 
They need not do these same things every year, 
although one can learn something new about growing 
corn, raising chickens, or making bread every year. 

The country would be a better place to live in, 
if there were more boys' and girls' clubs. 

ATTRACTING BIRDS 

The country would be a better place to live in 
if there were more song birds there. I know of a 
shrewd firm of real estate men, who wished to 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 455 

attract a certain class of residents to their suburban 
section, knowing that others would follow and 
property become more valuable. They laid out 
the woodsy tract with as little change from the 
natural conditions as they could, and still have a 
sanitary, convenient, and comfortable suburb. 
They did not chop down the trees in order to 
run straight roads through, nor did they fill in the 
small gully that wanted to be a brook. They en- 
couraged the brook and ran their roadways so as 
to avoid the big trees and give each building site a 
character of its own and privacy. Then they put 
a man in charge with strict orders to make the place 
attractive to song birds; to protect and feed them; 
to destroy their enemies. He was also to foster and 
encourage such wild flowers and ferns as grew 
naturally in the woods, and to propagate and increase 
them so as to make the place a paradise. The man 
entered into the spirit of their idea and succeeded 
wonderfully. The .real estate men advertised and 
the right people came and were convinced and 
bought homes there and "lived happy ever after." 

BRINGING BACK THE SONG BIRDS 

How can boys and girls bring back our song birds? 
I will not say much about why we want them, for 



456 OUTDOOR WORK 

in enlightened America we take it for granted. 
Some people still want to be convinced that birds are 
of practical value. I will say only that the dam- 
age to crops by insects in nineteen hundred and 
four, is estimated at nine hundred and seventy- 
five million dollars. Investigations by scientists in 
state and nation all go to prove that a vast percentage 
of this loss could have been saved by birds. I wish 
every child would be ambitious to increase the bird 
life on every farm, on every village block. Here 
are some facts that ought to be convincing. I take 
them at random from my notes: 

Kingbirds kill bot-flies. 

Brown thrashers feed mostly on insects, especially 
white grubs and curculios. 

Cat-birds, cuckoos and orioles are very important 
enemies of gypsy moth. 

The red-eyed vireos are "premium caterpillar 
hunters." 

Bluebirds board themselves. Eat cut-worms, 
furry caterpillars, and grasshoppers. 

Wrens' food is ninety-eight per cent, animal 
matter. 

Warblers, titmice, creepers, and nut hatches eat 
lice. 

A pair of robins fed their nestlings this menu in 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 457 

three hours, bringing food every three minutes: 
sixty-one earth-worms, sixteen yellow grubs, thirty- 
eight other insects. Also four grasshoppers, several 
dragon flies, and a few moths. 

Robins rank first as enemies of white grub. 

Kingbirds protect poultry by driving away hawks; 
ninety-eight per cent, of their food is insects, mostly 
injurious sorts, 

Woodpeckers destroy grubs in living trees. 
Phoebes catch flies, lighting on backs of cattle so as 
to be handy ; also elm-leaf beetle, adults of canker- 
worms, cut-worms and gypsy. 

Baltimore orioles are worth their weight in gold 
as destroyers of gypsy and brown-tail moths. 

Rose-breasted grosbeaks cleaned out potato beetles. 

Scarlet tanagers ate gypsy moths at the rate 
of thirty-eight per minute for eighteen consecutive 
minutes. 

Thirty cedar waxwings will destroy ninety thou- 
sand canker-worms in a month. 

So we can pile up the evidence in favour of the birds. 

HOW TO ATTRACT BIRDS 

Two words tell us what to do to increase bird 
life: provide and protect. We must provide food, 
water, and nesting places. We must protect from 



458 OUTDOOR WORK 

disturbance, from natural enemies, from destruction 
by hunters who sell the feathers. 

All over the country, laws to protect birds are 
being introduced into legislatures. Boys and girls 
may think that they cannot do much to help 

make laws. They can if 
their fathers are in the 
legislature as lots of fathers 
are, take the country over. 
Maybe your father does 
not know how much birds 
are worth . Get him to read 
the bulletins issued by the 
government. The boys who 
protect the birds around 
home will be the law makers 
some fine day themselves. 
They'll "see to it," then. 
But now what can you 
do to-day.'^ Is it winter.'^ Feed the birds. There are 
many winter bird residents. Where are the insects 
in winter? Have they gone south? Not a bit of it. 
They lurk under the bark on your apple trees. They 
hide on the fence rails and under the leaves. Trust the 
birds to find them unless snow prevents. The extra 
feeding you give them will not toll them away from 




A birds' table hung with 
wires 



. A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 459 

the insect food they love, but will keep them "on 
the job" and will keep them from starving in stormy 
weather. Water, too, they often suffer for in winter. 
Supply it in shallow basins and slightly warmed. 
Tie suet to the trees; sacks made of loose netting 
will hold nut meats for them. Scatter grain for 
the grain eaters on a platform. 

In spring furnish nesting places and material, 
protection from cats and distressing disturbances; 
mud for robins, string for orioles, floss, feathers, 
and straw for others. Do something every day 
for your birds. Drinking fountains are a necessity, 
especially in towns where there is no running water. 
Shallow basins are best. They will often come 
right to the door and drink or bathe, unless 
frightened by some real or fancied danger. To 
make the birds tame you must make them feel 
safe, and supply their wants. 

THE TRAFFIC IN BIRD SKINS 

Not many girls wear birds' feathers in their hats. 
But many women do, and girls get to be women 
very soon. No one knows how many birds are 
slaughtered in America each year for hat trimmings. 
A few facts are available such as: seventy thousand 
skins were sent in four months from a small district 



460 OUTDOOR WORK 

on Long Island; one New York house contracts to 
furnish to Paris forty thousand skins in one season; 
four hundred thousand bird skins from America 
sold in one London auction room in three months. 
These numbers fairly stagger the reader. I don't 
know one American girl who would kill a bird. If 
every one of them would refuse ever to wear any 
bird feathers there would be a great falling off in 
this traffic. 

Collecting birds' eggs and nests is still quite com- 
mon, and should be discouraged. The present 
state of the bird population does not warrant the 
destruction of any except for the big museums. 
Their collectors are trained experts who collect 
only such birds as are needed for scientific 
purposes. They go at the right season to do 
the least damage, and they do not slaughter 
by wholesale. 

Besides cats, which can be regulated to a certain 
extent in our homes, birds have other enemies. 
Crows, though valuable insect eaters, are bad nest 
robbers and have been caught in the act of killing 
nestlings and even small adult birds. Snakes eat 
both eggs and young. Guards for cats will keep out 
squirrels which molest the birds' nests. Ground 
nesting birds may be protected with wire netting. 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 461 

Where this has been tried, in no case did it cause 
birds to desert the nests. 

Birds need thickets, hedge-rows and shrubbery 
for nesting places, hiding places, and shelter from 
storms. 

Every farmer who kills the birds on his place 
justifies the destruction by the evidence that they 
eat fruit. True, some of them do. But if water 
is provided many of them prefer it to fruit juice. 
To preserve our strawberries and cherries, we should 
plant June berry and Russian mulberry, which the 
birds like better. Chokeberry, buckthorn, elder 
berry, and mulberry will attract birds away from 
blackberry and raspberry patches. Wild cherry will 
protect the grapes, as both ripen late. 

DOMESTICATING WILD GAME 

The country would be a more attractive place 
to live in if there were more wild game. Thirty 
years ago, w^hen I was a little girl in the middle West, 
my brothers used to shoot "prairie chickens" 
(grouse), quail (bob-white), wild geese, brant, wild 
ducks, and even bigger birds. But now the guns are 
all rusty, and the powder flask is empty. I came 
across the old wad-cutter in the attic and hardly 
recognized it. 



462 OUTDOOR WORK 

Efforts are being made in several states to rear 
wild fowl in the barn yard. Bob-white, grouse, mal- 
lard, wood ducks, and Canada geese are being 
experimented upon. A measure of success has 
already been achieved, but more experience is neces- 
sary especially with regard to the feeding of the 
young birds. 

Probably the wild fowl for young hunters to ex- 
periment with is wood duck or mallard. A man 
whose ten years' experience with raising wild fowl 




A wood duck will nest in a box like this 

has earned him the title of expert, writes as follows: 
*'I think it would be a most useful work to educate 
our young people up to the fact that with a Uttle 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 463 

patience and a small outlay they can help to increase 
our supply of wild birds. For raising wood ducks, 
all one needs is a small pond or even an artificial 
tank surrounded by a few bushes enclosed by a wire 
fence. In one corner, place a box on a post 
three feet high with a cleated boardwalk leading 
up to a platform from which they can reach the 
entrance, which should be a round hole. Turn a 
pair of wood ducks into the enclosure the first of 
March, and with luck your duck will build her nest, 
and lay from eight to twelve eggs. In about four 
weeks the eggs will hatch and the troubles com- 
mence.'* 

He goes on to say that some kinds of wild geese 
are comparatively easy to raise and that they do 
not require much of a pond, but ample grazing 
facilities, like their domestic relatives. Mallards, 
also, are very easy to raise. 

As wild fowl bred in captivity bring a very good 
price and the demand is increasing with the spread- 
ing interest in the subject, raising wild fowl might 
be a source of income to an enterprising young man 
or woman. 

All spring shooting of wild fowls ought to stop. 
Don't say, "If I don't shoot them, somebody else 
will." That is not the attitude of a good sportsman. 



464 OUTDOOR WORK 

Public opinion among boys can only be established 
by boys. If you don't believe in hunting in spring, 
when the ducks are laying or brooding the young, 
you can not only stop doing it, but you can influence 
others. Will you do this.'^ To kill one mother duck 
this year means eight or ten less next year. It is 
a plain example in arithmetic to see what a big 
blunder you make if you shoot in spring. 

A GAME PRESERVE 

If you live on a big farm or ranch well wooded 
and watered, your conditions are ideal for creating 
a private game preserve. If a few wild birds are 
known to be already at home on your place, en- 
courage them. Let them breed in security and plant 
their favourite food crops. Small areas of land in 
various out of the way places can be ploughed and 
planted in spring to buckwheat and millet, wheat, 
rye, and barley. 

The bob-white has become so rare that you will 
probably have to plant some seed birds, as they say. 
They can be bought for five to ten dollars a dozen. 
Care should be taken that the birds are not 
frightened when liberated. To spend ten dollars 
for birds, only to lose them by carelessness, is poor 
business. These suggestions are given by an 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 465 

experienced game warden: "Take the boxed birds 
out near some good, thick shelter where they can 
hide and gain confidence. Attach a long rope to 
a soap box, scatter grain about near the end of the 
box nearest the cover, and scatter sheaf grain along 
toward the cover. Take only three cocks and three 
hens from the shipping box and put them in the 
liberating box. Go some distance off and be delib- 
erate. Let the quail get rested and quiet. Pull 
the long rope, lifting the box gently and steadily. 
The birds will see the grain and hop out. Watch 
them from your safe distance following the wheat 
toward the cover. Keep up the supply of wheat 
until they are accustomed to their new home, and 
can find their way back after roaming. Birds 
should not be planted later than May first." 

PROTECTING THE WILD FLOWERS 

The country would be a better place to live in 
the whole or part of the year or to visit for a day or 
a week or a month if there were more wild flowers 
there. Even the . man who doesn't know one 
flower from another will acknowledge, if asked, that 
wild flowers make the woods and the roadsides 
and the meadows prettier to look at. 

The country over, our loveliest wild flowers have 



466 OUTDOOR WORK 

met the same fate as the bright-feathered birds. 
They have been hunted for their blossoms and the 
gatherers have not cared whether they pulled the 
plants up by the roots or not. The case of trailing 
arbutus is a particularly sad one. In localities 
where it used to flourish, selfish and wanton hands 
have literally rooted it out until none remains. 

Only lately has any effort been made to protect 
the wild flowers and multiply them. Now, in the 
general awakening of the public to the fact that we 
are blundering and wasteful, a widespread interest 
has grown up in saving the wild flowers. 

In your own locality you can help this good work. 
Refrain from destroying the plants yourself. When 
you gather flowers in woods or meadow do so in 
moderation. A few loose, graceful sprays will give 
you as much pleasure as a huge bunch inartistic- 
ally crowded into a vase. Have you not often 
seen children returning from a walk in the woods 
bearing handfuls of columbine.^ These frail blooms 
wilt in the hot sun, and the roadway is often 
strewn with forlorn bunches of them, dropped by 
tired children. How much better that each child 
should gather a few and put them all in a botanical 
case or wet paper to be distributed when they reach 
home. Those hundreds on the dusty road will 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 467 

never be visited by the ruby-throated humming- 
bird, nor set any seed for next year's flowers. Older 
boys and girls can do much to influence the younger 
ones to gather sparingly. 

Another way to increase the wild flowers in your 
locality is to propagate them. Gather their seeds 
and plant them in your garden where you can protect 
the young seedlings from harm. Where they are 
big enough, set them out where they will have 
natural conditions. Or undertake a bit of wild 
gardening right in the woods or the roadside where 
the plants grow naturally. Clear out less desirable 
sorts, lessening the struggle for your favourites. 
Cultivate them a little. See that they do not suffer 
from too much sun or rain or drought. 

If you know of a plot of woodland soon to be de- 
nuded or a piece of wild land to be improved, get 
permission to gather bulbs, roots, and plants there. 
If you know the flowers the year 'round, you will 
be able to recognize the lilies, the orchids, the blood 
roots, the wild ginger, hepatica, violets, and can 
transplant them to your own woods or garden. 

PREVENTING FOREST FIRES 

It is October now, and this morning's paper had 
accounts of terrible forest fires raging in Minnesota. 



468 OUTDOOR WORK 

Hundreds dead, thousands homeless, and millions 
of dollars' worth of property wiped out. 

Nobody knows, who has not fought fire, what a 
fiend the foresters have to deal with. I have looked 
up many forest fire statistics and I find always noted 
among the "sources of fires," this item: Forest Fires 
Set By Children. There may not be much that 
boys and girls can do to put in practice the big 
things we hear talked about under the name of 
conservation, but one thing you can certainly 
refrain from doing, and that is, setting a forest 
fire. A person who makes a fire in the woods is 
responsible to the community for that fire and its 
consequences. To boil a coffee pail, to broil bacon, 
to bake biscuits, to fry fish, to give comfort to the 
hunter, trapper, camper, or picnicker, many are the 
legitimate uses of a fire in the woods. No real sports- 
man forgets his fire. His last act before leaving a 
camp is to see that no vestige of it remains. He makes 
sure every spark is dead, then throws on another 
pail of water, and goes on with a light heart and 
a clear conscience. If you have ever left a fire in the 
woods, anywhere, your conscience ought to give you 
a good jab when you read of forest fires, though 
distant, a jab that will prevent your repeating the 
offence. 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 469 

KILLING WEEDS 

Weeding is the boy's job, isn't it? If only one 
could get some kind of inspiration into weeding, 
so as to rob the work of its drudgery! 

If we must serve our time at weeding, let us at 
least weed intelligently. What is a weed anyhow? 
In Germany, I am told, the peasants call weeds " Un- 
hrauty Since ''Kraut'' is cabbage, *' UnkrauV must 
be weeds. 

A weed is really a plant growing where we don't 
want it. The worst weed in a hill of four corn stalks 
is the fourth stalk of corn that crowds the others. 
The worst weeds in a row of beets are the little 
beet plants that crowd each other. W^hat a plague 
they are! 

Some of the plants we usually include among our 
"coarse native weeds" are grown in gardens in 
Europe. Mullein, for example, over there is called 
"the American velvet plant" and a well-grown 
specimen is really handsome. 

If weeds are plants out of place there is much to 
be done by boys and girls in the way of ridding 
gardens, lawns, school grounds, and village streets 
of their overgrowth of weeds. If you clear out 
one thing put in something better or nature may 
put in some plant that will not please you. Save 



470 OUTDOOR WORK 

seeds from your own garden and drop them along 
the roadside. 

The school grounds are the particular province 
of the school boys and girls. Join together to make 
the grounds more beautiful and there is no end 
to the improvements that will follow. 

A lecturer once visited the school in a small 
village in the state of New York. On his way from 
the village to the school-house he was impressed 
with two things : first, the wonderful size and vigour 
of the burdocks that seemed to have possession of 
even the front yards on the business streets; and, 
second, the quantity of rubbish accumulated on the 
margin of the pretty little stream which wandered 
imder the bridges of the town. Do boys and girls 
know what public spirit is? Do you know how 
your little village strikes a stranger? The lecturer 
was so struck by the sad state of the town that he 
made up his mind to talk to the school about it. 
He did. He found that public spirit was not dead 
there; it was only dormant. The boys and girls 
had passed by the burdocks so often during their 
growth that they had taken them for granted. They 
had so often thrown papers, broken dishes, worn- 
out baskets, barrels, and rubbish over the bridges 
that they forgot to notice how it looked. What else 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 471 

is an old creek like that good for anyhow? Can't 
go swimmin' in it. 

Before the man finished his sociable little talk 
with the boys and girls he had organized the younger 
ones into brigades of twenty to make war on the 
burdocks. With the help of teachers and boys he 
mapped out the town and assigned given localities 
to certain groups. Each group had a captain with 
orders. The lecturer had a burdock plant brought 
in, a tremendous one, root and all, from the school 
yard. He showed the boys and girls how well 
adapted this weed is to make a living, how by means 
of burs it steals rides, travelling from place to place, 
dropping a few seeds here and a few there. He 
showed them the tough, long root and told them 
the plant's life history. Has the burdock any 
vulnerable spot.'' they wondered. The only time 
when burdock is weak is when it comes up as a 
seedling. One scrape of the hoe would kill hundreds 
then. 

Hearing what was up at school, an enterprising 
business man offered to give ten dollars to the squad 
of pupils who brought in the largest number of 
burdock plants. This added zest to the work and 
a generous emulation. Before the week was up, 
the town was rid of burdocks, and there were wagon 



472 OUTDOOR WORK 

loads of them withering on the vacant lot near the 
school. The squad that won the prize brought in 
upwards of seven hundred plants, root and branch. 
They donated the money to the school library. 

The boys and girls in that village didn't need to 
be waked up but once. They went to work on 
the little stream. They had bonfires at the water's 
edge. They planted willows and other water lov- 
ing trees on the banks, they asked the selectmen 
to pass a law to forbid the throwing of rubbish and 
sewage into the stream. They enforced the law 
themselves. Then they built two little dams, 
and made a skating pond right near the school 
house. 

GETTING RID OF POISON IVY 

If there is any one thing that would make the 
country a better place to live in for some people, it 
would be to eradicate poison ivy. When it once 
gets possession of a fence row, it is an awful job to 
get it out. Cutting off the tops is about as effectual 
as cutting your hair. It grows again thicker than 
ever. The roots and the creeping stems run under 
ground and every cubic inch of soil has to be 
gone over. 

A great many beautiful plants will have to be 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 473 

destroyed in our fence rows in getting out the poison 
ivy. But we can replace these, and by constant 
watchfulness keep the ivy out. 

In some localities the village selectmen have 
seriously undertaken the eradication. Any one who 
has ever suffered will agree that the work ought to 
be taken hold of in a public way. Many people are 
immune. Those who know themselves to be so 
should undertake the work. A bounty is offered 
by some towns for uprooted plants. 

The hands should be washed frequently with hot 
water and plenty of soap when working on poison 
ivy. Washable overalls and shirt should be worn, 
as the oil of the ivy gets on the garments and may 
poison any one who handles them. 

LESSENING THE PLAGUE OF MOSQUITOES 

Every boy and girl in the "mosquito belt" rea- 
lizes keenly that the towns as well as the country 
would be better places to live in if there were no 
mosquitoes. 

Some people do not believe that it is possible 
to lessen this plague, much less end it. But such 
a belief is pure ignorance. I know of an army post 
where in one season the mosquitoes were eradicated. 
It was easy there, because the post was isolated and 



474 OUTDOOR WORK 

because, when the commandant issued a general 
order that all rain barrels were to be covered or 
emptied, the people went right out and obeyed. 
You see, army people get a fixed habit of obedience. 
Then the health officer, who really had the matter 
most at heart, though backed by his superior, had 
squads of prisoners at work gathering up and cart- 
ing off tin cans or other rubbish capable of holding 
water. Pools were drained. Sewer openings and 
ponds were oiled. Before the mosquitoes had 
fairly got out of winter quarters all the stagnant 
water was coated with an oil film. There was no 
use trying to lay eggs under those conditions, so 
they left for parts unknown. As mosquitoes can- 
not fly far unless carried by the wind, they un- 
doubtedly perished just outside the gates, and the 
people came out and sat on their porches safe and 
happy. They were ashamed that they had grumbled 
when the orders came to cover the rain water 
barrels. 

Mosquitoes breed in water. The wigglers of the 
watering trough or rain barrel are young mosquitoes. 
You can raise your own mosquitoes as well as your 
own chickens and pigs. A little precaution would 
save much annoyance. Neighbourhoods should 
unite to rid themselves of the pest. Boys can do 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 475 

the work required. The school children in Wor- 
cester, Mass., wage very effective war against mos- 
quitoes every year under the guidance of their 
teachers. The saving in cost of netting and wire 
screens would almost pay the expense of a campaign 
against mosquitoes and flies. 

After emptying or covering all the water re- 
ceptacles on the place, it is well to place a few 
decoy pails in promising situations. When the 
mosquitoes have deposited their eggs, tip over 
the pails and that is the end of that lot. One female 
can produce four hundred eggs, so you see what a 
calamity it is for her young to come to maturity, 
which they may do in eight to ten days. 

Mosquitoes have their natural enemies. Where 
areas of water are too large to oil, we should see to 
it that fish are plentiful, especially goldfish, sunfish, 
roaches, killies, and minnows. Toads, frogs, and 
lizards also prey on mosquitoes as do the nymphs of 
dragon flies and other water insects. Swallows and 
purple martins catch mosquitoes on the wing. 

FIGHTING FLIES 

The house fly is no longer a mere nuisance, but 
is a menace to health. He is well named the typhoid 
fly and the filth fly. The boys and girls who help 



476 OUTDOOR WORK 

rid their neighbourhood of these disease-carrying 
pests are real patriots. 

Fhes are not a heaven-sent plague in this day 
and generation. Flies in the milk, flies in the 
pantry, flies on the kitchen door, flies buzzing about 
the table, are the obvious result of carelessness and 
mismanagement. What is more, the remedies are 
not hard to apply. The typhoid fly (house fly) 
breeds in horse manure. The adult fly feeds upon 
every known variety of filth as well as upon good 
food, but the undeveloped fly is a footless maggot 
and it breeds in your own and your neighbour's 
stable yard. 

People will go on buying fly paper, fly poison, 
fly traps, screen doors, and window netting to keep 
flies out, but the very fly that has visited a typhoid 
patient to-day may to-morrow leave the imprint 
of his foul feet on the baby's face, or drown himself, 
but not his germs, in your gravy. 

What does your father have a manure pile for? 
If he is a frugal farmer he expects to put it on his 
fields when the other work is out of the way, and 
plough it in. He knows the value of manure on fields. 
But does he realize that the best time to carry the 
manure out is while it is new.'^ Every expert will 
tell him so and why. In the pile by the barn it 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 477 

lies and burns. Have you seen it smoke? Burnt 
manure is wasted fertilizer. When it rains, the 
valuable elements needed by the soil leach out and 
nourish the crop of "jimson weeds" and burdocks 
that will crowd round the barn yard next year. 

Meantime the flies buzz round the manure pile. 
The worse it smells the better they like it. They 
are there for business. Eggs, thousands upon 
thousands of tiny flies' eggs, are deposited by in- 
dustrious and prolific flies. A fly's egg! The hired 
man will laugh at you for bothering over a thing 
so insignificant. But when his wife comes down 
with typhoid and the flies come in and worry her, 
he will complain of his luck and drive out the flies, 
which go merrily forth to start little private epi- 
demics all over the neighbourhood. 

Destroy their breeding places. That is one remedy 
for flies. Trap them, poison them, discourage them. 

Is it worth while for you to do this when the rest 
of the people do not.^ Yes, indeed. If you have 
very near neighbours, their flies may get to you 
to some extent, but with nothing to furnish breeding 
places, and no foul-smelling swill or decaying animal 
or vegetable stuff around, they will not be attracted 
to your place. Awaken the neighbour's interest 
in your "fly-destroying crusade." If you can reach 



478 OUTDOOR WORK 

results best by forming a club, organize and pass 
resolutions and wake people up to their responsi- 
bilities. This is practical work for a boys' good 
citizenship club. 

TRAPPING 

I know a city boy who is fortunate enough to have 
a farm home to go to as soon as school closes in the 
summer. With his parents and brothers and sisters 
he lives the life of the farm boy, with enough of 
gardening, a little of chicken raising, one cow to 
milk, and a chance to measure his cunning against 
that of many *' varmints" which would otherwise 
destroy his garden and steal his chickens. He knows 
how to use a gun, and when, and where. He can 
make a good trap, a scientific and humane trap, and 
he knows the ways of the two- or four- or six-footed 
enemies he is at war with. Between them and him 
there is a fair field and no favours, just as between 
one wild creature and another. If to-day he out- 
wits a crow, to-morrow a skunk pays the crow's score 
with heavy interest by making a meal of a nest- 
ful of young chickens. 

This boy has learned enough of the art of prepar- 
ing skins to make those he gets salable, and he ex- 
hibits with just pride a handsome fur skating cap 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 479 

made by his mother out of skins of mink he has 
taken. His traps add something every year to his 
growing college fund. 

There are a great many things about the business 
of trapping that seem very horrible and brutal to 
Pj-^ ^ ^ tc^ =a.^_ a sensitive person. Be- 

cause many cruel men 
have gone into that life, 
which is a life of the 
greatest hardship and 
has little in it to encour- 
age gentleness, we have 
rather taken it for 
granted that all trap- 
ping is unjustifiable and 
that a boy who wants 
to set traps is an in- 
human monster and not 
to be tolerated in a civil- 
ized home. If fathers 
and mothers were all 
like my young friend's parents, they would see 
that trapping ought to be a part of a boy's training, 
just like using an axe, or a saw, or a gun. 

Trapping everything would be bad business. 
You would not catch squirrels in a trap any more 




480 OUTDOOR ^WORK 

than you would shoot bluebirds or brown thrashers. 
One could easily damage his neighbourhood and 
himself by trapping the wrong things or trapping 
in the wrong way. A trapper who is a sportsman 
will see to it that his traps are of the right kind. 
I would not have a mouse-trap in the house that 
made a practice of catching mice by the foot or tail. 
There are traps of many kinds for a variety of 
purposes and the trapper must either catch his prey 
alive and provide a way of despatching it humanely 
or use a trap which is instantaneous in its deadly 
work. 





Box-trap and figure 4 

Boys who have learned to trap in the natural, 
legitimate way do not become "fish butchers" or 
"game hogs" when they grow up. I once saw a 
picture of a game warden standing triumphantly 
beside a mound of dead crows, two thousand and 
twelve was the number, I believe. He had cun- 
ningly learned to imitate their call so successfully 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 481 

that they could not resist coming within range of 
his deadly weapon. Crows may be harmful to wild 
fowl but no boy with right instincts would be guilty 
of an act so base as this, so unbecoming a sportsman 
and a gentleman. 

Getting rid of the animals which prey upon or- 
chard, garden, and chicken roost is, without question, 
one of the ways of making the country a better 
place to live in. Trapping may be regarded as 
clean sport when done for this purpose, or for food 
when needed. Catching animals alive for the sake 
of taming and training them as pets is treated in 
another chapter and has its own rules. 

There are a number of fur-bearing animals which, 
though too shy to venture inside the barn yard, 
prey so successfully upon the less fortunate ones, 
that it has become our duty to take up warfare 
against them. This duty is all the more heavily 
laid upon us because, in the act of civilizing the 
woods and converting the hills and valleys into 
cultivated fields and pastures, we have destroyed 
the natural hiding places of the wild things and 
** upset the balance." If we were suddenly to aban- 
don this country, it would not be many generations 
before the buffalo, the wild pigeon, and the wild 
turkey would return to their haunts, the forests 



482 OUTDOOR WORK 

would recover the hills, the potato beetle would 
go back to its Colorado weed, and some natural 
enemy would control the San Jose scale and the Eng- 
lish sparrow and reduce them to their natural 
places. 

In some localities trapping of fur-bearing animals 
is still a money-making small industry and if prop- 
erly carried on will lead to no evil results. The 
more a boy knows about the habits of the animals 
he seeks to outwit, the greater will be his chances 
of a capture, and when he knows a little he will 
want to know more. He will learn that there are 
rules in this game as well as in games with his human 
fellows, and that there are things "that no man 
would do," and pretend to self-respect. A knowl- 
edge of woodcraft is indispensable to the trapper 
and helps him to take care of himself and act with 
good judgment in cases of emergency. 

A boy that sets a trap takes a certain responsi- 
bility. If he fails to visit his traps he breaks a 
rule of the game. A live animal in a cage trap 
begins to suffer very soon for water and for food. 
An animal in a steel trap, if not dead, will often pull 
or even gnaw off his injured leg, and escape. His 
tragic story may often be read in his footprints 
in the snow. If trapping for skins you must take 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 483 

them off while fresh, as they taint very quickly 
and may be ruined by delay. 

TRAPPING MINK 

The boy that catches a mink is a pretty lucky 
boy in these days when those wily little robbers have 
grown so scarce. The price of mink fur made into 
muffs and collars is so high as to make a mink 
skin worth trying for. I can imagine the surprise 
and well-earned triumph of my young trapping 
friend when, after trying for a year or two to solve 
the mystery of the disappearance of his thorough- 
bred chickens, he finally succeeded in capturing a 
fine mink. A friend of his to whom he had taught 
all he could of the art of trapping caught another. 
And this happened within the city limits of the 
nation's capital ! Who says now that the mink has 
disappeared? 

The mink is a flesh-eater, and lives on what he 
can catch, varying his bill of fare with frogs, snakes, 
birds, mice, muskrats, and fish. It is always open 
season for trout in the mink's code of laws and 
though he is not a water animal his home is more 
than likely to be near a trout stream, on the bank, 
in a well-concealed place. It is not fair to trap mink 
in the breeding season, which is April or May. The 



484 OUTDOOR WORK 

young are at the mercy of all sorts of flesh-eaters, 
including their own fathers, who are a most undis- 
criminating sort. There ought to be some form 
of guarantee to a mink mother that while she is 
foraging for food for her young she will not be 
enticed into a trap. Later, when she goes a-hunting 
on her own account and the chances are even, she 
is legitimate prey for the trapper. 

Steel traps are best, say the experts, and they 
should be cunningly concealed. Gouge out a sort 
of hole in the bank, conceal the trap at the front, 
and put the bait farther in so that the trap must be 
passed to reach the bait. Muskrat flesh, fish, or 
other meat is the bait used. A common practice 
is to scorch the bait, to make the odour more per- 
vasive and attractive. The price of fresh mink 
skins varies according to size and condition from 
two dollars and a half to four dollars. 

TRAPPING SKUNKS 

The last thing you would expect of a skunk is 
that he should be popular among the girls. But 
under the seductive title of Alaska sable, the fur 
of the plain Jersey or York State skunk is worn 
with satisfaction by ladies of good sense and good 
taste. A skunk's pelt is worth two dollars and a 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 485 

half or more and although he is of undoubted 
value to the farmer as a destroyer of insect 
pests, I shall not undertake his defence. A 
cloud of witnesses would rise up to recount their 
losses from the marauding skunk. His fond- 
ness for poultry would be mere circumstantial 
evidence that he is an enemy of the wild birds 
as well, but we have direct evidence enough to con- 
vict and condemn him. Because of his unusual 
weapon, used only when hard-pressed in an unequal 
battle, a good deal of special precaution has to be 
taken when trapping Mephitis for his fur. The 
least taint of the unmistakable odour ruins the skin, 
as no cleansing compound has been invented strong 
enough to remove it or drown it. It is said on 
good authority that the skunk seldom besprinkles 
itself when discharging its "rear battery." 

Skunks are not very clever nor very swift. They 
go about at night for the most part, or early evening. 
The young are born, six to nine in a litter, in April 
or May. The nests are hidden in holes in hollow 
trees, among rocks, or in the ground. The young 
ones frequently follow the old ones all summer or 
even longer, little realizing that this is a dangerous 
habit. By tracking them from the scene of their 
noctural visit to or from the stream they run to 



486 OUTDOOR WORK 

daily for water, one may find the hiding place. A 
clever trapper succeeds in capturing a whole family 
ofttimes by simply, making the path the skunks 
follow more distinct, treading down the grass, and 
even setting up sticks to guide them along toward 
the place they wish to go. Traps with bits of meat 
for bait are set at intervals along the path. A 
snare and spring pole are said to insure no bad con- 
sequences. One author advises the hunter that 




Deadfall trap 

striking a sudden blow near the tail paralyzes the 
ejecting muscles. No doubt! But in the meantime 
what is the skunk doing? 

The white stripe on the skunk's back, while a 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 487 

valuable warning to all of what is approaching, is a 
disadvantage from the trapper's viewpoint. This 
stripe varies in length and some varieties are without 
it entirely. There is a story of the days when the 
Indians in western New York used to bring in many 
skunk skins to the local fur-buyer. One red man, 
a notorious cheat, came in one day with a single 
skin to sell. 

• "Long stripe or short stripe," said the buyer, 
whose prices varied with the length of the white 
stripe on the skunk's back. 

"Ver' short stripe. How much pay.'^" said the 
Indian. 

"Let's see the skin," said the buyer. 

The Indian showed the skin, which was that of a 
young animal, and very small, the stripe extending 
the entire length of the skin. 

"You said short stripe," said the indignant buyer, 
pointing the finger of scorn at the runty little skin. 

"Short skunk, short stripe," said the Indian with 
a shrug. "What you pay?" 

I cut out an item from the daily paper last week 
which had this headline: "Skunks sent him to 
college." Can you draw your own inferences? 
The fur of skunks is very valuable now and in 
many fashionable Paris shops it is advertised 



488 OUTDOOR WORK 

with large placards printed distinctly for their 
English-speaking customers, "Veritable Skong.*' 

TRAPPING WOODCHUCKS 

Judging by the tales they tell, New England 
boys of the passing generation spent most of their 
time trying to outwit the woodchucks which infested 
their farms. If all their tales were true, the barn 
doors of their respective states must have needed 
stretching to hold all the skins of all those wood- 
chucks, and no boy could possibly have been long 
without that valuable possession, a whiplash made 
of woodchuck hide. This little cousin of the 
squirrels is neither very fleet nor very cunning. 
He has, though, very quick ears and quicker eyes, 
and knows that his hole is the safest place for him 
when boys are around. 

The only excuse for hunting woodchucks is that 
they sometimes get so numerous as to do real damage 
in the garden, either by their holes and the mounds 
of earth they throw out, or by eating more vegetables 
than can reasonably be spared. A better game than 
hunting them would be to discover how they build 
their underground galleries. Are these mere holes 
deep enough to crawl into for safety.^ Is there 
more than one tunnel? Has the owner an exit 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 489 

as well as an entrance to his home? Has he a nest, 
and where and what is it? Does he hoard for winter, 
or hibernate? 

TRAPPING MOLES 

It is hard to get a new point of view. Having 
been brought up in the belief that the mole is a 
nuisance, pure and simple, I find myself unable on 
short notice to believe that this little blind miner 
is actually useful. If only he would confine his 
sphere of usefulness to some other neighbourhood 
than our lawn! We all think that his underground 
passages disfigure the lawn. But does the grass 
die where the tunnels run? I think not. You see 
patches of dead grass on many lawns, but do you 
find moles at work in these same lawns? In fact, 
the brown, dead patches of grass are probably killed 
by the white grub, arch enemy of grass roots. The 
mole is arch enemy to the white grub and others 
of his ilk. According to people who know about 
moles, we ought to decorate them with medals 
instead of trapping them and decorating the barn 
door with their tiny skins. 

The first mole I ever saw was one brought in 
by our old cat. She laid it down with a sort of 
shamefaced air as much as to say, " Things have come 



490 OUTDOOR WORK 

to a pretty pass when a self-respecting cat is obliged 
to bring in the likes of that. It fair turns my 
stomach!" It was not an attractive object, but 
we children turned it over and over with a stick. 
What an odd shape, so unlike the animals familiar 
to us. Its nose like a gimlet, its fore feet like little 
shovels; no wonder it could tunnel. No eyes, no 
ears; but what use has a mole for either? Do you 
know what Oliver Herford said of the mole? 

"See, children, the misguided mole, 
He lives down in a deep, dark hole; 
Sweetness and light and good fresh air 
Are things for which he does not care. 
But say not that he has no soul. 
Lest haply we misjudge the mole." 

No one can say that the mole has not a redeeming 
feature. Surely there is no creature clad in a coat 
of more surpassing softness and fineness than the 
mole. Are the exquisite * 'moleskin'* garments some- 
times seen in furriers' windows really made of 
tiny skins of this despised little quadruped? 

It is not likely that any of us will ever catch 
many moles. If they are troublesome in your lawn, 
you and the neighbour boys can do some trapping 
with mole traps. They are of a kind specially fitted 
to outwit the mole in his tunnel, and directions 
accompany each trap. 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 491 

Every boy knows what "knuckle down" means 
and how sore your knuckles get in marble time. 
There is usually one boy in the crowd who is lucky 
enough to have a knuckle dabster, made of mole- 
skin. "There, use that. Soft as velvet, eh? Nope, 
don't want to sell it. Caught a mole last summer, 
tanned the skin myself and my mother made this 
for me, like the one in 'The Boy's Own Book.' 
Wouldn't take a dollar for it." 

TRAPPING MUSKRATS 

The first fur collar I ever had was sold to me as 
"electric seal." There was no deception practised 
on me, for I knew that the fur was neither electric 
nor seal. But I didn't know then that it was musk- 
rat fur. They call it Hudson seal nowadays, I 
believe. These small relatives of the beaver have 
so few natural enemies, and are so prolific that they 
are in no danger of disappearing from our ponds and 
sluggish streams. The beaver, on the other hand, is 
supposed to be protected by law. Until it is against 
the law to sell and to wear beaver skins, trappers 
will evade the law and escape the fines. 

Muskrat fur is not so fine nor thick as that of 
the beaver and not nearly so expensive. A fresh 
skin is worth twenty-five to forty cents. They are 



492 OUTDOOR WORK 

more in demand now than ever, owing to the fashion- 
able demand for furs and the scarcity of other fur- 
bearing animals. There are many ways of trapping 
them. As they are aquatic and active in the winter 
they are often taken through the ice. Muskrat trap- 
pers are always good skaters. A hard blow on the 
ice will stun the rat, which is pulled out through 
a hole. They are sometimes speared through holes 
in the ice. A boy might develop enough patience 
and perseverance, as well as skill and alertness, in 
a job like this to make it pay better in some other 
field than the sale of the skins. 

Muskrats are often caught in traps, too. To 
be successful at this it is necessary to learn a great 
deal about the little fellow's habits of life, his house, 
his food and his ways of escaping enemies. It is well 
to know his enemies, too. These are the fox, the 
mink, and the otter. You would be a lucky boy, 
indeed, if instead of common little musquash you 
bagged an otter whose pelt is worth fifteen or twenty 
dollars. My father has an otter skin cap about 
which he and my uncle tell a truly exciting story. 
They caught an otter, but that was sixty odd 
years ago. 

Muskrats are the greatest nuisance in ornamental 
grounds where there are large water features. They 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 493 

have an unfortunate fondness for lily bulbs. The 
boy who can outwit them will win favour with the 
gardener and the garden's owner, with the muskrat 
skins thrown in. 

TRAPPING GOPHERS 

Our old dog Nimp was convinced that the way to 
get a gopher was to dig him out. Doctor Hornaday 
tells an amusing story about his having that same 
conviction when a boy. Many a night Nimp 
would come home from the pasture, panting, his 
coat all rough with the reddish soil that we knew had 
come out of a gopher hole. Weary, yes, but dis- 
couraged, never. The old dog would go back to his 
job morning after morning. Sometimes we would 
try to help by carrying buckets full of water and 
"drowning him out." Never did Nimp scent a 
gopher near the cattle well but once, and then the 
boys drowned him out with a vengeance. The 
hunted little creature leaped out of a hole so unex- 
pectedly near where the boys sat that one turned a 
complete somersault and landed in the last pail- 
ful of water. Nimp was quicker than his masters 
and soon laid the bedraggled little miner at our 
feet. We felt pretty small. 

Very little can be said in defence of the gopher. 



494 OUTDOOR WORK 

He is an undeniable nuisance and helps to bring 
the farmer's crop down to a lower figure than it ought 
to be. Traps and poisoned vegetables are swifter 
methods of dealing with the case than digging, for 
the gopher is himself past master in the art of 
digging. 

TRAPPING THE WEASEL 

One of the natural enemies of the pocket gopher 
is the weasel. If only we could set the weasel on 
the gopher and then had something like a mongoose 
to keep down the weasels! I never yet heard 
a good word for the weasel. He seems to be the 
embodiment of all that is mean and sly and hateful. 
It is undeniable that he does not obey the laws 
of the woods, that he kills for the mere joy of killing, 
and that is a high crime. Men with weasel-like 
ways get to have the same blood-thirsty look. The 
weasel is a savage, hunting every wild creature in 
the woods, rabbits, mice, chipmunks, moles, rats, 
grouse, chickens, and ducks, and even insects. 
He robs the nests of birds, eats eggs and young, 
and even the old birds are not safe from him. 

I just read in a book that "weasels are so small 
that their fur has little value, but the time will 
come when it will be eagerly sought and used." 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 495 

"Well, that time has come, but, who ever went to a 
shop and asked for a weasel tippet? But ask for 
ermine and they will show any quantity of it. 
The price! Well, wouldn't the weasel be surprised 
to find himself so popular. It all comes about because 
of that interesting habit of his, changing colour in 
the winter. The weasel is a sort of peculiar shade 
of brown as you can testify if you have caught one; 
the ermine is pure white all but the tippest tip of 
the tail which is dead black; yet they are one and 
the same. Weasel in summer and ermine in winter. 
The weasel, the mink, and the marten are all 
enemies of the native wild game, and efforts to exter- 
minate them are always applauded by sportsmen. 
Much is yet to be learned of their habits. Trappers 
have succeeded in keeping the mink and marten 
in check, but the weasel goes his murderous way, 
feared and hated by everybody. 

TRAPPING RATS 

There is no pest around the farm yard or barn 
yard anywhere so hard to cope with when once 
they get a foothold, as rats. Finding them nu- 
merous in the barn once, we put chicken feed in the 
uncemented cellar of the house. Before the end 
of the first winter of that arrangement we were 



496 OUTDOOR WORK 

praying for a visit from the Pied Piper. The rats 
took possession. They broke dishes, seemingly for 
the fun of it; they gnawed the softened woodwork 
around the kitchen sink and held high carnival at 
midnight throughout the spaces between the walls; 
they all but bit the babies in their cradles and de- 
fied all our efforts to outwit them. Traps, cats, 
poison, we tried everything, but they outstayed us. 
If ever we get into a like case again I shall be 
tempted to try ferrets or cyanide. 

Some people are successful trappers of rats, and 
these suggestions come from them. Set a trap in 
a pan of meal or bran, cover with same and put it 
in a runway. Make the runway easy to pass through 
by placing boards or boxes along near the walls. 
Cover a trap with thin brown paper or cloth and 
set it in the runway. Smoke the trap over the fire 
and heat it hot (not hot enough to draw the temper 
of the steel), after each setting. Change the place 
of the trap very often. Wear gloves to keep the 
odour of your hands from the trap. The rat is the 
very wisest of all his family, his behaviour seems to 
be the result of impish intelligence rather than mere 
instinct for self-preservation. 

No true sportsman will allow his antipathy to rats 
or weasels to lead him to commit acts of cruelty. 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 497 

Fighting them with their own methods makes you 
into a human rat or weasel. 

TRAPPING RABBITS 

There are times when rabbits get too numerous, 
and times when they are needed to eat, and times 
when you want to try your hand at taming a wild 
one. Under these circumstances it is legitimate 
sport to hunt or trap them. If damage is being 
done to crops in the spring we shall be forced to 
wage war against them in self-defence during their 
breeding season. Otherwise no sportsman would 
do it. If there is so little legitimate rabbit food 
in winter that they are driven to destroy fruit trees 
to get a little bark, then the inference is that there 
are too many rabbits. Study the rabbit's ways of 
living, and learn his weak points. Find out if he has 
a "tendon of Achilles" or vulnerable spot. Look 
one over. What are his conspicuous characteristics? 
Is it not evident that his life is one long series of 
narrow escapes? He has few, if any, wits; how low 
his forehead. Timid eyes. But ears! Can he not 
hear you coming a mile off? And LEGS! Did you 
ever see a greater development in that direction? 
Yes, in a grasshopper, but nowhere else. The 
rabbit is a perfect mammalian grasshopper. When 



498 OUTDOOR WORK 

you stop to think of it you will see a certain pathetic 
side to its life. 

The rabbit has its wild enemies, ever watchful, 
ever close on its trail. The hawk, the mink, the 
weasel, the fox, the lynx, and others are rabbit 
hunters. Besides his quick hearing, and his swift- 
ness, Br'er Rabbit has a wonderful power of becoming 
invisible. His nondescript colour, combined with 
his ability to *' freeze," serve him as well as a cloak 
of darkness. The cotton-tail rabbit is commonest 
in the Middle and Southern states, while his bigger 
cousin, the varying hare, overlaps the rabbit's ter- 
ritory in the colder parts, and takes his place 
in the most Northern states. The varying hare is 
called also the snow-shoe rabbit and the white 
hare, but in summer he is dull russet brown. You 
may have heard of the wonderful change of colour 
of this and other animals. Interesting stories are 
told of the sudden blanching of the fur, of its turning 
white, *'in a single night," like the locks of the 
prisoner of Chillon. Not a word of truth in that 
story. Why do people, whose only fitness for telling 
stories lies in their having an imagination, make up 
such yarns about real things? They could invent 
an animal and then tell as many wonderful tales as 
they liked and nobody would be deceived. The 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 499 

truth about animals is wonderful enough. If writers 
would only take pains to find out the truth instead 
of repeating fancies! 

Suppose the early ancestor of the white hare had 
a grayish-brownish coat, just the thing to protect 
him from his enemies in a world all full of grayish- 
brownish things. But one day there came a snow 
storm, and all the gray -brown things were covered 
with whiteness, except the poor hare. Suddenly 
he became the most noticeable object in the woods. 
Then all his neighbours saw him and wanted him, 
and mostly they got him. 

It was about then that the hare began to be the 
** varying hare." A law of nature came to his rescue. 
Some hares there were which were not so dark col- 
oured as others. They may have been longer winded 
and swifter footed, too, but anyhow they escaped 
and lived to bring families into the world. As 
like breeds like, these young hares took after their 
parents, and because they were lighter coloured 
in the winter they in turn escaped and carried this 
peculiarity into the next generation. It took end- 
less years, and innumerable generations of hares, 
varying this way and that to fulfill this natural 
law, and fix the habit. But now that it is fixed 
we may well view it with wonder, and call it an 



500 OUTDOOR WORK 

example of the law of the "survival of the fittest." 
How is the change brought about? Just as the 
chickens and the birds moult, and the horse sheds, 
so do the rabbits. Their summer coats are 
thinner and brown. One by one the brown hairs 
fall out in the fall till finally the new coat is there, 
which is white. It is not like the human hair chang- 
ing from brown to white. In the fall and then 
again in the spring there is a time when the vary- 
ing hare is a variegated hare, his coat being mottled 
with white and brown. 

Rabbits are hunted with dogs and their trails 
in the new snow are easily followed by the hunter 
alone. They are caught in traps and snares of 
various kinds. In one of his lessons in woodcraft, 
Mr. Seton describes a rabbit snare as follows: 
"String, a shoe-lace, a buckskin thong, or even a 
strip of clothing may be used as a snare. There 
are many ways of making a rabbit snare, but the 
simplest is the best. The essentials are, first, the 
snare -an ordinary running noose; second, a twitch- 
up — that is a branch bent down or a pole set in the 
crotch of a sapling. The snare is fast to the end of 
the pole, and spread open in a well worn runway. 
The loop is about four inches across and placed 
four inches from the ground. The pole twitch-up 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 501 

is held down by placing the cross-piece of the snare 
under some projecting snag. The rabbit bounding 
along, puts his head in the noose, the slight jerk 
frees the cross-piece from its holder, and in a moment 
the rabbit is dangling in air." 

Rabbit fur is not very durable but is much used 
for the manufacture of less expensive fur garments. 
Under the name of *' French seal" it finds a ready 
market and is really soft and pretty. 

TRAPS THAT BOYS CAN MAKE 

There are a number of traps and snares that boys 
can make. Descriptions of these are to be found 
in books on amateur carpentry, manual training, 
and books for boys of various kinds. The illus- 
trations in this chapter are intended to give a 
few suggestions. 

MONEY AND RECREATION IN TRAPPING 

I shall not attempt to go at this subject from a 
professional side, as I think no boys care to trap 
for a living. Whatever may be said about the boy 
having a gun in a thickly settled suburb, nothing can 
be offered against his trapping if he goes at it in an 
amateur way and with no intent to exterminate the 
animals (which only a shrewd trapper could do). 



502 , OUTDOOR WORK 

I will presume the boy to be attending a neighbour- 
ing school either on the edge of a city or in a town. 
Under these circumstances he must attend to his 
traps early in the morning or after school. At first 
there may be no more than enough money in it to 
cover the cost of traps, but nevertheless the rec- 
reation which it offers will appeal to the average 
boy. As his knowledge of animals becomes greater 
with time, he will get more and more pocket money. 

When he starts in, the other boys may laugh at 
him and say that there is nothing to trap. In most 
cases they would make a big mistake, because 
there often are, on the edge of a city, more fur- 
bearing animals than in the surrounding country. 
This for the reason that the professional trapper 
is not present and most of the city boys do not know 
how to trap. There are, say, muskrats and an 
occasional mink along the rivers and streams. 
The swamps usually abound in muskrats. In the 
woods and fields are squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, 
opossums, and (in the North) woodchucks. 

It is legitimate to catch the water animals in 
ordinary steel traps because, if set right, the cap- 
tive is instantly drowned. For dry land the steel 
jaw-trap is not suitable, because it will rarely 
kill the animal, but cause him much suffering as 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 50S 

it usually breaks his leg. Often in such case the 
trapper will only find a foot in his trap, the animal 
having gnawed or twisted his body free. Never- 
theless any trap is humane which kills the animal 
instantly. There are many new traps on the 
market which will do this, but on account of their 
being patented and high-priced they are not ex- 
tensively used. The traps which are most commonly 
used for this purpose are the deadfalls and snares. 

The muskrat lives wherever there is a body of 
water. He feeds chiefly on vegetable matter which 
he obtains in the swamps or digs on the banks, 
although he frequently visits a cornfield or vegetable 
garden. Only in cases of extreme hunger, as hap- 
pens when they are frozen in, have they been known 
to eat their own kin. In swamps they have houses 
made of rushes and twigs, standing in a rounded 
shape about two feet above the water. 

To trap in the swamps one must have high rubber 
boots and if the water is deep a small boat is neces- 
sary. A home-made flat-bottomed canoe, made of 
canvas, will be found to answer the purpose admir- 
ably. Where it is shallow enough to use the boots, 
a long, heavy staff should be carried, as the mud is 
very often treacherous and interwoven with musk- 
rat runways. I might as well say in the beginning 



504 OUTDOOR WORK 

that the intending trapper should take a friend 
into his confidence and the two set out to trap to- 
gether, for in this way they can help each other out 
of difficulties. (My friend had to do some pretty 
stiff pulling once to get me out of a mud hole into 
which I had recklessly plunged, having only in my 
mind to get to my traps quickly.) 

Along the rivers the muskrats live in holes in the 
banks. In trapping in such places one may walk 
along the bank or use a boat, setting the traps in 
the entrances of houses or in the runs. 

Before the trapping season begins it is very wise 
to go over the territory and locate the different 
houses, runways, and feeding places. This will 
save time when trapping begins, which should not 
be before December, because up to this time the 
pelts are not in their prime. The trapping season 
lasts for about three months or until the ice breaks 
up in the spring. 

If the water is not yet iced over, the muskrats 
can be caught with the steel jaw-traps. They 
should be set in the runs or at the entrances of houses 
so that they are just under the surface of the water. 
The chain should be staked in the water as far out 
as possible. The muskrat will in every instance 
try to swim out into deep water and the weight of 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 505 

the trap on his foot will pull him down and drown 
him. Traps may be baited with apples, carrots, 
turnips, and nearly any vegetable or fruit. The 
bait should be stuck on a slanting stick so that it 
will hang about a foot above the pan of the trap. 




"Stop thief" trap 

When the water is frozen over, other methods must 
be followed. Many trappers cut the houses open and 
set the traps on the inside, but those who wish to 
keep the muskrats in the vicinity will not do this, 
because it destroys their homes and causes them 
to seek new shelter. For my own use I have "stop 
thief" traps which kill instantly and are not very 
expensive. A hole is cut in the ice and the trap 



506 OUTDOOR WORK 

set before the house entrance or in a swimway. 
In going through, the muskrat puts his foot on 
lever a, which releases 6, and this in turn lets 
down lever c, which strikes him over the neck 
or back, breaking it instantly. As shown, the trap 
is fastened with staples to a wooden prong, one end 
of which is stuck in the mud at the bottom and the 
other fits just under the ice. 

Mink are rarely caught, because they are very 
crafty and keen to the scent of a human being. 
Once in a while they are caught in a trap set in the 
water or in the entrance to a muskrat house. This 
is accounted for by the fact that the mink preys 
largely upon these weaker animals in the winter 
when food is scarce. Sometimes they can be lured 
with a muskrat carcass or a dead bird. If the trap 
is not set under water there is little probability of 
getting the mink. The trapping of mink should be 
encouraged, because they kill not only muskrats, 
but chickens and other domestic fowl as well. One 
must use his own judgment and set his trap in a 
place frequented by the mink. Prime mink skins 
usually bring three or four dollars from any local 
fur dealer. On the other hand muskrats are more 
plentiful and bring only about thirty cents. Thus 
it is that some boys prefer to keep the muskrat 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 507 

skins and tan them at home. From these skins they 
make comfortable caps and gloves. 

To skin the muskrat and mink, commence on 
the hind legs. The skin is slit down one leg and up 
the other. With muskrats the tail is cut away 
from the rest of the skin. The mink's tail adds 
greatly to the value of the skin, so the bone is care- 
fully extracted with a pair of pincers and the tail 
left on the skin. The skin is then 
gradually peeled down over the 
body and head. It is then stretch- 
ed with the fur side inward on a 
board as shown in the figure on 
this page. After this it is hung 
in a dry, airy place to dry, away 
stretchers for skins. The ^^om the suu. For homc tau- 
™rhenol^LuXa't''' ning a fresh pelt needs only salt, 
but the following solution gives 
somewhat better results and makes the skin more 
pliable: 

Salt, two pounds. 

Sulphuric acid (com.) two ounces. 

Rain water, one gallon. 

The pelt should remain immersed in the solution 
for about two days. When taken out it must be first 
nearly dried and then the flesh side scraped and 




508 OUTDOOR WORK 

rubbed until soft with some dull steel instrument, 
such as an old blunt chisel. Care should be taken 
not to break the skin as it is very fragile in some 
places, especially on the belly. 



iAfLtHC 



ikiP'i$«a4t 







Snare with carrot bait 



The land animals can be caught in snares or dead- 
falls. Very likely most boys know of these, but 
I have illustrated them here in the forms which 
I think have served me best. Usually only the 
smaller animals are caught in the snare, such as 
rabbits and squirrels. To bait for either of these 
corn or apple is commonly used, although onion 
makes a good scent bait to draw rabbits from 
afar. Besides these named nearly any green 
vegetable or fruit will answer very well. These 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 509 

animals being maybe the least wary of them all 
are therefore very easy to catch. For an opos- 
sum green corn and a little raw meat is all that is 
necessary, while for a raccoon a crawfish may be 
added. This latter is considered the best, and 
hardly ever fails to lure the raccoon. The skins of 
the raccoon and opossum bring about a dollar and 
a half, and half a dollar, respectively. 




Deadfall 



Rabbits and squirrels are caught as game, while 
raccoons together with opossum are considered 
eatable by most trappers. The up-to-date people 
who order "marsh rabbits" at the most fashionable 



510 OUTDOOR WORK 

restaurants are eating no other than muskrat. 
These they eat with a great reUsh under the new 
name. I will add that it makes a great difference 
in eating a muskrat whether you let your imagina- 
tion get the best of you. Many times I have eaten 
muskrat with quite as much comfort as though I 
were eating rabbit. Naturally the meat has a very 
strong taste which must be removed before cooking, 
by soaking over night in salt water. Young fat 
woodchucks are also frequently eaten. 

It is hard to set down on paper just how and where 
to set the traps and it can only be learned from 
another trapper or by experience. The most im- 
portant thing is to observe closely and learn the 
habits of the animals. 

Stanley Coville 

curing and tanning skins 

The boy trapper must know how to take the skins 
from the animals he traps, and how to treat them 
to preserve their beauty and value. The skin 
should be taken off before it becomes tainted, and 
with greatest care not to injure it. Some skins 
are exceedingly tender. Be careful to remove bits 
of fat or flesh; left to dry on the skin, these detract 
from its value. 



A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN 511 

No artificial dressing is needed to cure or dry a 
skin. The fresh skin should be tacked to a smooth 
board or drawn over a stretcher, fur side in, so that 
the air can get at it freely. It should not be put 
in the sun, or rain, or artificial heat. 

When thoroughly dry, the skin is ready for market 
or it may be tanned at home. A boy fortunate 
enough to obtain a valuable pelt like that of marten, 
mink, or otter, will certainly want to try his hand at 
tanning. You want first to be sure to use a mixture 
which will not injure the fur but will fix it more 
firmly in its place. Never put any dressing on the 
fur itself. You also want the skin to be soft and 
pliable so that it can be made up into some form 
of garment. The following directions are adapted 
from "The Tricks of Trapping" by W. Hamilton 
Gibson, a reliable source of all trapping lore for 
American boys: "After every particle of loose 
flesh and fat is removed from the skin, it should be 
soaked for a couple of hours in warm water. While 
waiting, prepare this mixture: Take equal parts 
of saltpetre, borax, and sulphate of soda. Mix 
with enough water to make a thin batter. Paint 
the wet skin over thickly on the flesh side. Fold 
the skin flesh side in and lay in an airy place, for 
twenty-four hours. 



512 OUTDOOR WORK 

"On the following day prepare a second mixture 
consisting of two parts sal-soda, three parts borax, 
four parts castile soap. Melt these together over a 
slow fire. Apply this mixture in the same manner as 
the first, twenty -four hours later. Fold skin as before 
and leave another twenty -four hours. Make a third 
mixture of equal parts of common salt and alum, 
dissolved in warm water and thickened with coarse 
flour to the consistency of thin paste. Allow this 
to dry on, then stretch the skin lightly and scrape 
off the hardened paste with the bowl of a spoon. 
Sometimes a second or even a third treatment with 
the last mixture is required to make the skin abso- 
lutely pliable, after which it should be finished with 
sand-paper and pumice stone. A skin thus dressed 
should be soft as velvet. The alum and salt set 
the hair securely." 



APPENDIX 
FREE PRINTED MATTER. HOW TO GET IT 

There are three principal sources of free printed 
matter on outdoor work subjects. These are (1) 
the United States Department of Agriculture. 
(2) State Agricultural Experiment Stations. (3) 
Commercial houses who sell supplies for outdoor 
occupations. 

(1) The Farmers' Bulletins are the ones which 
will be most useful to outdoor workers. They are 
written in plain language and treat every subject 
in a practical way. To get them, you should ad- 
dress a postal card thus: 

Secretary of Agriculture, 
Washington, 

D. C. 

On the other side of the card write as follows: 

Please send me the list of publications for free distribution 
sent out by your department, and oblige, 

Sign your name and address distinctly. 

513 



514 OUTDOOR WORK 

In a few days you will get a printed circular giving 
the numbers and titles of all the Farmers' Bulletins 
and other free literature they have. Choose the 
ones you want and address another postal card to 
the Secretary of Agriculture. Ask for the bulletins 
wanted by number and title both, to avoid mistakes. 

Some of the bulletins of the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture are not for free distribution. 
They are too valuable. A charge is made to cover 
cost of printing. To get any bulletin mentioned 
in this list with its price, address a letter to Super- 
intendent of Documents, Washington, D. C, and 
enclose the amount in money order or coin. Do 
not send stamps. 

(2) To get the bulletins of your own State Ex- 
periment Station you have only to address another 
postal card; this time to the Director of State Ex- 
periment Station, with the name of the post-office 
and state. If not sure of the title and number of 
the bulletin you want, tell the director what phase 
of the subject you are interested in. For instance, 
one experiment station issues several poultry bulle- 
tins. Do you want the one on *' House Construc- 
tion" or the one on "Feeding Pullets?" The more 
definite you are in your requests the more likely 
you are to get exactly what you need most. 



OUTDOOR WORK 515 

To get the bulletins of another station than your 
own is not quite so simple. They have no fund 
for distributing bulletins in other states. But I 
have never failed to get them by asking for just the 
thing I need. It is well to offer to pay for these; 
the price is always small. Some of them are re- 
published by the United States Department of 
Agriculture and appear in their free list as Experi- 
ment Station Work, I, II, III, etc. 

(3) The booklets and catalogues sent out free 
by seedsmen and other commercial houses are mines 
of information, condensed and well arranged. You 
may be sure that the advice they give is good, too, 
as it is to their interest to have their patrons succeed. 
You can tell the difference very quickly between the 
"hot air" of advertising matter and the practical 
advice to beginners given in catalogues. 

I most earnestly advise every one of you who is en- 
gaged in a money making enterprise to subscribe 
for some good periodical. There are good magazines 
devoted to many of the occupations, and some of 
the general magazines have special departments 
which are full of up-to-date suggestions which have 
not yet been put into books. The latest and best 
word on your subject is none too good and may 
make a difference of dollars in or out of pocket. If 



516 OUTDOOR WORK 

you devise any new apparatus or discover any time 
or money saving methods, don't keep these things to 
yourself. Help the world along by writing to some 
magazine about it. They are on the lookout for 
valuable novelties. The stories told by boys and 
girls in this volume have almost all appeared in 
a magazine first. 

THE OUTDOOR WORKEr's LIBRARY 

The following is a list of useful books, magazines, 
and bulletins on all sorts of outdoor occupations, 
written by experts. They are here arranged by 
subjects under eleven of the chapters of this book. 

N. B. Some of these books are expensive. Get 
them from your library if you can. The librarian 
will usually order a good book which is in demand. 

Chapter II. 

United States Department of Agriculture: 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 332. Nuts and Their Uses as Food. 
No. 188. Weeds Used in Medicine. 
No. 252. Maple Sugar and Sirup. 

Plant Industry Bulletin No. 107. Root Drugs. Price 15c. 
Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 105. 

Maple Sap Flow. 
Vermont Experiment Station Bulletin No. 26. ' Maple 

Sugar. 
Practical Forestry. Gifford. D. Appleton & Co. 
Mushrooms, Edible and Otherwise. Hard. Mushroom 

Publishing Co., Columbus, O. 



Chapter III, 






Farmer 


s' Bulletin 


No. 


22. 


<< 


i( 


No. 


205. 


(( 


<< 


No. 


49. 


« 


(( 


No. 


137. 


« 


<< 


No. 


64. 


tt 


(< 


No. 


234. 


« 


« 


No. 


357. 


«» 


« 


No. 


177. 


<( 


(( 


No. 


390. 



OUTDOOR WORK 517 

The Feeding of Farm Animals. 
Pig Management. 
Sheep Feeding. 
The Angora Goat. 
Ducks and Geese. 
Guinea Fowl. 

Methods of Poultry Manage- 
ment at the Maine Experi- 
ment Station. 
Squab Raising. Price 5c. 
Pheasant Rearing in the United 
States. 
Bureau of Animal Industry Bulletin No. 68. Milch 

Goats. Price 13c. 
Cornell University Rural School Leaflet. Vol. 4. No. 1. 

Horses. Ithaca, N. Y. 
Poultry Bulletins Nos. 240, 282, 274, 249. Cornell University. 
The Poultry Book. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Chapter IV. 

The Poultry Book. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
Our Home Pets. O. T. Miller. Harper & Bros. 
The Self-Supporting Home. St. Maur. The Macmillan Co. 
Goldfish Culture. Mulertt. H. Mulertt, publisher, 289 
Fennimore St., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Chapter V. 

Illinois Agricultural College Extension Course. Dairy 

Lessons for Use in Public Schools. 
Farmers' Bulletin No. 413. Care of Milk in the Home. 
" " No. 196. Usefulness of the American 

Toad. 
No. 328. Silver Fox Farming. 



518 OUTDOOR WORK 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 330. Deer Farming in the United 

States. 

Chapter VI. 

American Boys' Handy Book. Beard. Harper & Bros. 

Bound Volumes ,of Country Life in America. Articles on 

Swimming Pools, Springs, etc. 
Farmers' Bulletin No. 138. Irrigation in Field and Garden. 

Chapter VII. 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 397. Bees. 

A B C of Bee Culture. Root. A. I. Root Co., Medina, O. 

How to Keep Bees. Comstock. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Chapter VIII. 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 165. Silk- worm Culture. 

Chapter IX. 

Botany. Bailey. The Macmillan Co. 

The Sea Beach at Ebb-tide. Arnold. The Century Co. 

Cornell Nature Study Leaflets. How to Make a Collection 

of Insects. Comstock. J. B. Lyon, Albany, N. Y. 
United States National Museum Bulletin 39. Collecting 

Fossils, Plants, Insects, Shells, Arrowheads, etc. 

Chapter X. 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 415. Seed Corn 

" " No. 175. Unfermented Grape Juice. 

New York Experiment Station at Geneva. Bulletin No. 258. 

(Popular edition.) Making Cider Vinegar at Home. 

Chapter XI. 

Farmers' Bulletin No. 185. Beautifying the Home Grounds. 
No. 134. Tree Planting on Rural School 
Grounds. 



OUTDOOR WORK 



519 



Farmers' Bulletin No. 155. How Insects Affect Health in 

Rural Districts. 
" No. 385. Boys' and Girls' Agricultural 

Clubs. 
No. 368. The Eradication of Bind Weed 
or Wild Morning Glory. 
How to Destroy Rats. 
How to Destroy English Spar- 
rows. 
The Muskrat. 

Insect Enemies of Shade Trees. 

Weeds: How to Kill Them. 

Common Birds in Their 

Relation to Agriculture. 

Price 6c. 

Grouse and Wild Turkeys in 

10c. 

Bureau of Entomology Bulletin No. 25. Mosquitoes. Price 10c. 
Bureau of Entomology Circular No. 11. House Flies. 
1909 Year Book of Department of Agriculture. Plants Useful 

to Attract Birds and Protect Fruit Trees. 
New Jersey Experiment Station Bulletin No. 216. The 

House Mosquito. 
Circulars issued by The Audubon Society. New York. 
How to Attract the Birds. Blanchan. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping. Gibson. 

Harper & Bros. 
Trappers' Guide. Newhouse. (Try to get this book from a 
library.) 



(( 


« 


No. 369. 


« 


« 


No. 383. 


(( 


<( 


No. 396. 


(( 


(< 


No. 99. 


«( 


(( 


No. 28. 


« 


(( 


No. 54. 


Biological 


Bulletin 


No. 24. 


the United States. Price 



JUL 8 1911 



S 





m DECORATlo J 



*='-lDW00DW0 



OUTDOOR SPo^S 



^^wvoooi^s AND oirrj 




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